THE LAW OF
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
THE LAW OF
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
THE LAW OF
Civilization and Decay
£n d&gai? on
BY
BROOKS ADAMS
Wj&j gorfe
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO, Ltd.
1921
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1896,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and ciectrotyped September, x8g6,
3 * 8, Cmhing & Co - Berwick A Smith
Norwood Idan, U.S.A.
PREFACE
In offering to the public a second edition of The
Law of Civilization and Decay I take the opportu-
nity to say emphatically that such value as the essay
may have lies in its freedom from any preconceived
bias. All theories contained in the book, whether
religious or economic, are the effect, and not the
cause, of the way in which the facts unfolded them-
selves. I have been passive
The value of history lies not in the multitude of
facts collected, but in their relation to each other,
and in this respect an author can have no larger
responsibility than any other scientific observer. If
the sequence of events seems to indicate the exist-
ence of a law governing social development, such a
law may be suggested, but to approve or disapprove
of it would be as futile as to discuss the moral bear-
ings of gravitation.
Some years ago, when writing a sketch of the his-
tory of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, I became
deeply interested in certain religious aspects of the
Reformation, which seemed hardly reconcilable with
the theories usually advanced to explain them. After
the book had been published, I continued reading
theology, and, step by step, was led back, through the
schoolmen and the crusades, to the revival of the
vi
PREFACE
pilgrimage to Palestine, which followed upon the con-
version of the Huns. As ferocious pagans, the Huns
had long closed the road to Constantinople ; but the
change which swept over Europe after the year 1000,
when Saint Stephen was crowned, was unmistakable;
the West received an impulsion from the East. I
thus became convinced that religious enthusiasm,
which, by stimulating the pilgrimage, restored com-
munication between the Bosphorus and the Rhine,
was the power which produced the accelerated move-
ment culminating in modern centralization.
Meanwhile I thought I had discovered not only
that faith, during the eleventh, twelfth, and early
thirteenth centuries, spoke by preference through
architecture, but also that in France and Syria, at
least, a precise relation existed between the ecclesi-
astical and military systems of building, and that the
one could not be understood without the other. In
the commercial cities of the same epoch, on the con-
trary, the religious idea assumed no definite form of
artistic expression, for the Gothic never flourished in
Venice, Genoa, Pisa, or Florence, nor did any pure
school of architecture thrive in the mercantile at-
mosphere. Furthermore, commerce from the outset
seemed antagonistic to the imagination, for a univer-
sal decay of architecture set in throughout Europe
after the great commercial expansion of the thir-
teenth century ; and the inference I drew from these
facts was, that the economic instinct must have
chosen some other medium by which to express
itself. My observations led me to suppose that
the coinage might be such a medium, and I ulti-
mately concluded that, if the development of a mer-
PREFACE
Vll
cantile community is to be understood, it must be
approached through its money.
Another conviction forced upon my mind, by the
examination of long periods of history, was the ex-
ceedingly small part played by conscious thought in
moulding the fate of men. At the moment of action
the human being almost invariably obeys an instinct,
like an animal ; only after action has ceased does he
reflect.
These controlling instincts are involuntary, and
divide men into species distinct enough to cause
opposite effects under identical conditions. For in-
stance, impelled by fear, one type will rush upon an
enemy, and another will run away ; while the love of
women or of money has stamped certain races as
sharply as ferocity or cunning has stamped the lion
or the fox.
Like other personal characteristics, the peculiari-
ties of the mind are apparently strongly hereditary,
and, if these instincts be transmitted from genera-
tion to generation, it is plain that, as the external
world changes, those who receive this heritage must
rise or fall in the social scale, according as their
nervous system is well or ill adapted to the condi-
tions to which they are born. Nothings? commoner,
for example, than to find families who have been
famous in one century sinking into obscurity in the
next, not because the children have degenerated, but
because a certain field of activity which afforded the
ancestor full scope, has been closed against his off-
spring. Particularly has this been true in revolution-
ary epochs such as the Reformation ; and families
so situated have very generally become extinct.
When this stage had been reached, the Reforma-
tion began to wear a new aspect, but several years
elapsed before I saw whither my studies led. Only
very slowly did a sequence of cause and effect take
shape in my mind, a sequence wholly unexpected in
character, whose growth resembled the arrangement
of the fragments of an inscription, which cannot be
read until the stones have been set in a determined
order. .Finally, as the historical work neared an end,
I perceived that the intellectual phenomena under
examination fell into a series which seemed to cor-
respond, somewhat closely, with the laws which are
supposed to regulate the movements of the material
universe.
Theories can be tested only by applying them to
facts, and the facts relating to successive phases of
human thought, whether conscious or unconscious,
constitute history ; therefore, if intellectual phenom-
ena are evolved in a regular sequence, history, like
matter, must be governed by law. In support of
such a conjecture, I venture to offer an hypothesis
by which to classify a few of the more interesting
intellectual phases through which human society
must, apparently, pass, in its oscillations between
barbarism and civilization, or, what amounts to the
same thing, in its movement fiom a condition of
physical dispersion to one of concentration. The
accompanying volume contains the evidence which
suggested the hypothesis, although, it seems hardly
necessary to add, an essay of this size on so vast a
subject can only be regarded as a suggestion.
The theory proposed is based upon the accepted
scientific principle that the law of force and energy
PREFACE
ix
fs of universal application in nature, and that animal
life is one of the outlets through which solar energy
is dissipated.
Starting from this fundamental proposition, the
first deduction is, that, as human societies are forms
of animal life, these societies must differ among
themselves in energy, in proportion as nature has
endowed them, more or less abundantly, with ener-
getic material
Thought is one of the manifestations of human
energy, and among the earlier and simpler phases of
thought, two stand conspicuous — Fear and Greed.
Fear, which, by stimulating the imagination, creates
a belief in an invisible world, and ultimately develops
a priesthood , and Greed, which dissipates energy in
war and trade.
Probably the velocity of the social movement of
any community is proportionate to its energy and
mass, and its centralization is proportionate to its
velocity; therefore, as human movement is acceler-
ated, societies centralize. In the earlier stages of
concentration, fear appears to be the channel through
which energy finds the readiest outlet; accordingly,
in primitive and scattered communities, the imagina-
tion is vivid, and the mental types produced are
religious, military, artistic. As consolidation ad-
vances, fear yields to greed, and the economic
organism tends to supersede the emotional and
martial.
Whenever a race is so richly endowed with the
energetic material that it does not expend all its
energy in the daily struggle for life, the surplus
may be stored in the shape of wealth ; and this
X
PREFACE
stock of stored energy may be transferred from
community to community, either by conquest, or
by superiority in economic competition
However large may be the store of energy accumu-
lated by conquest, a race must, sooner or later, reach
the limit of its martial energy, when it must enter on
the phase of economic competition. But, as the eco-
nomic organism radically differs fiom the emotional
and martial, the effect of economic competition has
been, perhaps invariably, to dissipate the energy
amassed by war.
When surplus energy has accumulated in such
bulk as to preponderate over productive energy, it
becomes the controlling social force. Thencefor-
ward, capital is autocratic, and energy vents itself
through those organisms best fitted to give expres-
sion to the power of capital In this last stage of
consolidation, the economic, and, perhaps, the scien-
tific intellect is propagated, while the imagination
fades, and the emotional, the martial, and the artistic
types of manhood decay. When a social velocity
has been attained at which the waste of energetic
material is so great that the martial and imaginative
stocks fail to reproduce themselves, intensifying com-
petition appears to generate two extreme economic
types, — the usurer in his most formidable aspect,
and the peasant whose nervous system is best adapted
to thrive on scanty nutriment. At length a point
must be reached when pressure can go no further,
and then, perhaps, one of two results may follow:
A stationary period may supervene, which may last
until ended by war, by exhaustion, or by both com-
bined, as seems to have been the case with the
PREFACE
XI
Eastern Empire ; or, as in the Western, disintegra-
tion may set in, the civilized population ma£ perish,
and a reversion may take place to a primitive form
of organism.
The evidence, however, seems to point to the
conclusion that, when a highly centralized society dis-
integrates, under the pressure of economic competi-
tion, it is because the energy of the race has been
exhausted Consequently, the survivors of such a
community lack the power necessary for renewed
concentration, and must probably remain inert until
supplied with fresh energetic material by the infusion
of barbarian blood.
BROOKS ADAMS*
Quincy, August 20, 1896.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
* . JPAGK
The Romans i
CHAPTER II
The Middle Age 48
CHAPTER III
The First Crusade 79
• CHAPTER IV
The Second Crusade ....... 103
CHAPTER V
The Fall of Constantinople . . « . . 124
CHAPTER VI
The Suppression of the Temple . . . .152
CHAPTER VII
The English Reformation . 186
CHAPTER VIII
The Suppression of the Convents . ' . . .220
XIV
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
FACE
The Eviction of the Yeomen 243
CHAPTER X
Spain and India 286
CHAPTER XI
Modern Centralization 3*3
CHAPTER XII
Conclusion , 352
Index ....... * * . 385
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAPTER I
THE ROMANS
When the Romans first emerged from the mist of
fable, they were already a race of land-owners who
held their property in severalty, and, as the right of
alienation was established, the formation of relatively
large estates had begun. The ordinary family, how-
ever, held, perhaps, twelve acres, and, as the land was
arable, and the staple grain, it supported a dense rural
population. The husbandmen who tilled this land
were of the martial type, and, probably for that reason,
though supremely gifted as administrators and sol-
diers, were ill-fitted to endure the strain of the unre-
stricted economic competition of a centralized society.
Consequently their conquests had hardly consolidated
before decay set in, a decay whose causes may be
traced back until they are lost in the dawn of history.
The Latins had little economic versatility; they
lacked the instinct of the Greeks for commerce, or of
the Syrians and Hindoos for manufactures. They
were essentially land-owners, and, when endowed
with the acquisitive faculty, usurers. The latter
early developed into a distinct species, at once more
subtle of intellect and more tenacious of life than the
2 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
farmers, and on the disparity between these two
types of men, the fate of all subsequent civilization
has hinged. At a remote antiquity Roman society
divided into creditors and debtors ; as it consolidated,
the power of the former increased, thus intensifying
the pressure on the weak, until, when centralization
culminated under the Caesars, reproduction slackened,
disintegration set in, and, after some centuries of
decline, the Middle Ages began.
The history of the monarchy must probably always
remain a matter of conjecture, but it seems reason-
ably certain that the expulsion of the Tarquins was
the victory of an hereditary monied caste, which suc-
ceeded in concentrating the functions of government
in a practically self-perpetuating body drawn from
their own order 1 Niebuhr has demonstrated, in one
of his most striking chapters, that usury was origin-
ally a patrician privilege; and some of the fiercest
struggles of the early republic seem to have been
decided against the oligarchy by wealthy plebeians,
who were determined to break down the monopoly in
money-lending. At all events, the conditions of life
evidently favoured the growth of the instinct which
causes its possessor to suck the vitality of the eco-
nomically weak; and Macaulay, in the preface to
Virginia , has given so vivid a picture of the dominant
class, that one passage at least should be read entire.
"The ruling class in Rome was a monied class; and it
made and administered the laws with a view solely to its
own interest. Thus the relation between lender and bor-
rower was mixed up with the relation between sovereign
1 History of Rome , Mommsen, Dickson’s trails., L 288, 290,
X.
THE ROMANS
3
and subject. The great men held a large portion of the
community in dependence by means of advances at enor-
mous usury. The law of debt, framed by creditors, and for
the protection of creditors, was the most horrible that has
ever been known among men. The liberty, and even the
life, of the insolvent were at the mercy of the patrician
money-lenders. Children often became slaves m conse-
quence of the misfortunes of their parents. The debtor
was imprisoned, not m a public gaol under the care of
impartial public functionaries, but m a private workhouse
belonging to the creditor. Frightful stones were told
respecting these dungeons.”
But a prisoner is an expense, and the patricians
wanted money. Their problem was to exhaust the
productive power of the debtor before selling him,
and, as slaves have less energy than freemen, a sys-
tem was devised by which the plebeians were left on
their land, and stimulated to labour by the hope of
redeeming themselves and their children from servi-
tude. Niebuhr has explained at length how this was
done.
For money weighed out a person could pledge him-
self, his family, and all that belonged to him. In
this condition he became nexus, and remained in pos-
session of his property until breach of condition,
when the creditor could proceed by summary pro-
cess . 1 Such a contract satisfied the requirements,
and the usurers had then only to invent a judgment
1 History of Rome, Niebuhr, Hare’s trans , 1 576, Niebuhr has been
followed m the text, although the “ nexum ” is one of the vexed points
of Roman law. (See Uber das altromische Sckuldrecht, Savigny ) The
precise form of the contract is, however, perhaps, not very important
for the matter m hand, as most scholars seem agreed that it resembled
a mortgage, the breach of whose condition involved not only the loss
of the pledge, but the personal liberty of the debtor. See Gatm, £v. ax.
4
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP*
for debt severe enough to force the debtor to become
nexus when the alternative was offered him* This
presented no difficulty. When an action was begun
the defendant had thirty days of grace, and was then
arrested and brought before the praetor. If he could
neither pay nor find security, he was fettered with
irons weighing not less than fifteen pounds, and taken
home by the plaintiff. There he was allowed a pound
of corn a day, and given sixty days in which to settle.
If he failed, he was taken again before the praetor
and sentenced Under this sentence he might be
sold or executed, and, where there were several plain-
tiffs, they might cut him up among them, nor was
any individual liable for carving more than his share . 1 *
A man so sentenced involved his descendants, and
therefore, rather than submit, the whole debtor class
became nexi, toiling for ever to fulfil contracts quite
beyond their strength, and year by year sinking more
hopelessly into debt, for ordinarily the accumulated
interest soon raised " the principal to many times its
original amount /* 8 Niebuhr has thus summed up
the economic situation : —
u To understand the condition of the plebeian debtors,
let the reader, if he is a man of business, imagine that the
whole of the private debts in a given country we*e turned
into bills at a year, bearing interest at twenty per cent or
more ; and that the non-payment of them were followed
on summary process by imprisonment, and by the transfer
of the debtor’s whole property to his creditor, even though
it exceeded what he owed. We do not need those further
circumstances, which are incompatible with our manners,
1 fftstofy of Rome, Niebuhr, Hare’s trans., it. 599. But compare
Auius Geiltus , xx, I. * JM, t u 582.
THE ROMANS
5
i.
the personal slavery of the debtor and of his children, to
form an estimate of the fearful condition of the unfortunate
plebeians.” 1
Thus the usurer first exhausted a family and then
sold it ; and as his class fed on insolvency and con-
trolled legislation, the laws were as ingeniously con-
trived for creating debt, as for making it profitable
when contracted. One characteristic device was the
power given the magistrate of fining for “ offences
against order ” Under this head “ men might include
any accusations they pleased, and by the higher grades
in the scale of fines they might accomplish whatever
they desired.” 2 As the capitalists owned the courts
and administered justice, they had the means at band
of ruining any plebeian whose property was tempt-
ing. Nevertheless, the stronghold of usury lay in
the fiscal system, which down to the fall of the Em-
pire was an engine for working bankruptcy. Rome’s
policy was to farm the taxes ; that is to say, after
assessment, to sell them to a publican, who collected
what he could. The business was profitable m pro-
portion as it was extortionate, and the country was
subjected to a levy unregulated by law, and conducted
to enrich speculators. “Ubi publicanus est,” said
Livy, quoting the Senate, “ibi aut jus publicum
vanum, aut libertatem sociis nullam esse.” s
Usury was the cream of this business. The cus-
tom was to lend to defaulters at such high rates of
interest that insolvency was nearly certain to follow ;
then the people were taken on execution, and slave-
1 History of Rome , Niebuhr, Hare’s trans., i. 583,
2 History of Rome, Mommsen, Dickson’s trans., 1, 472.
« Livy, xlv. 18.
6
CIVIUZAIIOV AND DECAY
nr\r
hunting formed a regular branch of the revenue ser-
vice. In Cicero’s time whole provinces of Asia Minor
were stiipped bare by the traffic. The effect upon
the Latin society of the fifth century before Chiist
was singularly destructive Italy was filled with petty
states m chionic war, the troops were an unpaid mili-
tia, which comprised the whole able-bodied popula-
tion, and though the farms yielded enough for the
family in good times, when the males were with the
legions labour was certain to be lacking The cam-
paigns therefore brought want, and with want came
the inability to pay taxes
As late as the Punic War, Regulus asked to be re-
lieved from his command, because the death of his
slave and the incompetence of his hired man left
his fields uncared for ; and if a geneial and a consul
were pinched by absence, the case of the men m the
ranks can be imagined. Even in victory the lot of
the common soldier was hard enough, for, beside the
chance of wounds and disease, there was the certain
loss of time, for which no compensation was made.
Though the plebeians formed the whole infantry of
the line, they received no part of the conquered
lands, and even the plunder was taken from them,
and appropriated by the patricians to their private
use . 1 In defeat, the open country was overrun, the
cattle were driven off or slaughtered, the fruit trees
cut down, the crops laid waste, and the houses burned.
In speaking of the Gallic invasion, Niebuhr has pointed
out that the ravaging of the enemy, and the new taxes
laid to rebuild the ruined public works, led to general
insolvency . 2
1 History of Home, Niebuhr, Hare’s trans., i. 583. * Hid,, ii. 603.
THE ROMANS
7
I.
Such conditions fostered the rapid propagation of
distinct types of mind, and at a very early period
Romans had been bred destitute of the martial in-
stinct, but more crafty and more tenacious of life
than the soldier. These were the men who con-
ceived and enforced the usury laws, and who held
to personal pledges as the dearest privilege of their
order, nor does Livy attempt to disguise the fact
“that every patrician house was a gaol for debtors;
and that in seasons of great distress, after every sit-
ting of the courts, herds of sentenced slaves were led
away in chains to the houses of the nobless .” 1
Of this redoubtable type the Claudian family was
a famous specimen, and the picture which has been
drawn by Macaulay of the great usurer, Appius
Claudius, the decemvir, is so brilliant that it cannot
be omitted.
“Appius Claudius Crassus . . . was descended from a
long ime of ancestors distinguished by their haughty de-
meanour, and by the inflexibility with which they had
withstood all the demands of the plebeian order. While
the political conduct and the deportment of the Claudian
nobles drew upon them the fiercest public hatred, they were
accused of wanting, if any credit is due to the early histoiy
of Rome, a class of qualities which, m a military common-
wealth, is sufficient to cover a multitude of offences. The
chiefs of the family appear to have been eloquent, versed
m civil business, and learned after the fashion of their age ;
but m war they were not distinguished by skill or valour.
Some of them, as if conscious where their weakness lay,
had, when filling the highest magistracies, taken internal
administration as their department of public business, and
left the military command to their colleagues. One of
1 History of Rome, Niebuhr, Hare’s trans , i 574
8
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
them had been entrusted with an army, and had failed
ignominiously None of them had been honoured with a
triumph. . . .
“ His grandfather, called, like himself, Appius Claudius
had left a name as much detested as that of Sextus Tar-
qiunius This elder Appius had been consul more than
seventy years before the introduction of the Licinian Laws.
By availing himself of a singular crisis m public feeling, he
had obtained the consent of the commons to the abolition
of the tribuneship, and had been the chief of that Council
of Ten to which the whole direction of the State had been
committed. In a few months his administration had be-
come universally odious. It had been swept away by an
irresistible outbreak of popular fury ; and its memory was
still held m abhorrence by the whole city. The immediate
cause of the downfall of this execrable government was said
to have been an attempt made by Appius Claudius upon
the chastity of a beautiful young girl of humble birth. The
story ran that the Decemvir, unable to succeed by bribes
ami solicitations, resorted to an outrageous act of tyranny.
A vile dependant of the Claud ian house laid claim to the
damsel as his slave. The cause was brought before the tri-
bunal of Appius. Hie wicked magistrate, in defiance of the
clearest proofs, gave judgment for the claimant. But the
gill’s father, a brave soldier, saved her from servitude and dis-
honour by stabbing her to the heart in the sight of the whole
Forum. That blow was the signal for a general explosion.
Camp and city rose at once ; the Ten were pulled down ;
the tribuneship was re-established ; and Appius escaped the
hands of the executioner only by a voluntary death.” 1
Virginia was slain in 449 b c., just in the midst of
the long convulsion which began with the secession
to the Mens Sacer, and ended with the Licinian
Laws. During this century and a quarter, usury
drained the Roman vitality low. Niebuhr was doubt-
1 Preface to Virginia.
I.
THE ROMANS
9
less right in his conjecture that the mutinous legions
were filled with next to whom the continuance of the
existing status meant slavery, and Mommsen also
pointed out that the convulsions of the third and
fourth centuries, in which it seemed as though Roman
society must disintegrate, were caused by “the insol-
vency of the middle class of land-holders ” 1
Had Italy been more tranquil, it is not inconceiv-
able that the small farmers might even then have
sunk into the serfdom which awaited them under the
Empire, for in peace the patricians might have been
able to repress insurrection with their clients , but
the accumulation of capital had hardly begun, and
several centuries were to elapse before money was to
take its ultimate form m a standing army. Mean-
while, troops were needed almost every year to
defend the city; and, as the legions were a militia,
they were the enemy and not the instrument of
wealth. Until the organization of a permanent paid
police they were, however, the highest expression of
force, and, when opposed to them, the monied oli-
garchy was helpless, as was proved by the secession
to the Mons Sacer. The storm gathered slowly.
The rural population was ground down under the
usury laws, and in 495 b c. the farmers refused to
respond to the levy. The consul Publius Servilius
had to suspend prosecutions for debt and to liberate
debtors m prison ; but at the end of the campaign
the promises he had made in the moment of danger
were repudiated by Appius Claudius, who rigorously
enforced the usury legislation, and who was, for the
time, too strong to be opposed.
1 History of Rome , Mommsen, Dickson’s trans., i. 484.
IO CIVILIZATION AND DECAY cha*.
That year the men submitted, but the next the
legions had again to be embodied ; they again
returned victorious , their demands were again
rejected ; and then, instead of disbanding, they
marched in martial array into the district of Crus-
tumeria, and occupied the hill which ever after was
called the Sacred Mount, 1 Resistance was not
even attempted; and precisely the same surrender
was repeated in 449. When Virginius stabbed his
daughter he fled to the camp, and his comrades
seized the standards and marched for Rome. The
Senate yielded at once, decreed the abolition of the
Decern virate, and the triumphant cohorts, drawn up
upon the Aventine, chose their tribunes.
Finally, in the last great struggle, when Camillus
was made dictator to coerce the people, he found
himself impotent. The monied oligarchy collapsed
when confronted with an armed force ; and Camillus,
reduced to act as mediator, vowed a temple to Con-
cord, on the passage of the Licinian Laws 2 The
Lictnian Laws provided for a partial liquidation, and
also for an increase of the means of the debtor class
by redistribution of the public land. This land had
been seized in war, and had been monopolized by the
patricians without any particular legal right. Lici-
nius obtained a statute by which back payments of
interest should be applied to extinguishing the prin-
cipal of "debts, and balances then remaining due
should be liquidated in three annual instalments.
He also limited the quantity of the public domain
which could be held by any individual, and directed
1 See History of Rome, Mommsen, Dickson’s trans., i, 298-9,
% See History of Rome, Niebuhr, Hare’s trans., hi. 22, 30,
I. THE ROMANS II
that the residue which remained after the reduction
of all estates to that standard should be distributed
in five-acre lots
Pyrrhus saw with a soldier's eye that Rome's
strength did not lie in her generals, who were fre-
quently his inferiors, but m her farmers, whom he
could not crush by defeat, and this was the class
which was favoured by the Licinian Laws. They
multiplied greatly when the usurers capitulated, and,
as Macaulay remarked, the effect of the reform was
“singularly happy and glorious" It was indeed no
less than the conquest of Italy. Rome, “ while
the disabilities of the plebeians continued • . . was
scarcely able to maintain her ground against the
Volscians and Hernicans. When those disabilities
were removed, she rapidly became more than a match
for Carthage and Macedon ” 1
But nature’s very bounty to the Roman husband-
man and soldier proved his ruin. Patient of suffer-
ing, enduring of fatigue, wise in council, fierce in
war, he routed all who opposed him ; and yet the
vigorous mind and the robust frame which made
him victorious in battle, were his weakness when
at peace. He needed costly nutriment, and when
brought into free economic competition with Afri-
cans and Asiatics, he starved. Such competition
resulted directly from foreign conquests, and came
rapidly when Italy had consolidated, and the Ital-
ians began to extend their power over other races.
Nearly five centuries intervened between the foun-
dation of the city and the defeat of Pyrrhus, but
within little more than two hundred years from the
1 Preface to Virginia, Macaulay.
12
CIVILIZATION’ W"t) DECAY
CHAP,
victory of Beneventum, Rome was mistress of the
world.
Indeed, beyond the peninsula, there was not much,
save Carthage, to stop the march of the legions.
After the death of Alexander, in 323 b c., Greece fell
into decline, and by 200, when Rome attacked Mace-
don, she was in deciepitude. The population of Asia
Minor, Syria, and Egypt was not martial, and had
never been able to cope in battle with the western
races; while Spain and Gaul, though inhabited by
fierce and hardy tiibes, lacked cohesion, and could
not withstand the onset of organized and disciplined
troops Distance, therefore, rather than hostile mili-
tary force, fixed the limit of the ancient centralization,
for the Romans were not maritime, and consequently
failed to absoib India or discover Amenca. Thus
their relatively impel feet movement made the most
material difference between the ancient and modern
economic system.
By conquest the countries inhabited by races of a
low vitality and great tenacity of life were opened
both for trade and slaving, and their cheap labour
exterminated the husbandmen of Italy. Particularly
after the annexation of Asia Minor this labour over-
ran Sicily, and the cultivation of the cereals by the
natives became impossible when the island had been
parcelled out into great estates stocked by capitalists
with eastern slaves who, at Rome, undersold all com-
petitors During the second century the precious
metals poured into Latium in a flood, great fortunes
were amassed and invested in land, and the Asiatic
provinces of the Empire were swept of their men
in order to make these investments pay. No data
T
THE ROMANS
13
remain by which to estimate, even approximately,
the size of this involuntary migration, but it must
have reached enormous numbers, for sixty thousand
captives were the common booty of a campaign, and
after provinces were annexed they were depopulated
by the publicans
The best field hands came from the regions where
poverty had always been extreme, and where, for
countless generations, men had been inured to toil
on scanty food Districts like Bithynia and Syria,
where slaves could be bought for little or nothing,
had always been tilled by races far more tenacious of
life than any Europeans. After Lucullus plundered
Pontus, a slave brought only four drachmae, or, per-
haps, seventy cents. 1 On the other hand, competi-
tion grew sharper among the Italians themselves.
As capital accumulated in the hands of the strong-
est, the poor grew poorer, and paupeiism spread. As
early as the Marsian War, in 90 b c , Lucius Marcius
Philippus estimated that there were only two thou-
sand wealthy families among the burgesses. In
about three hundred years nature had culled a pure
plutocracy from what had been originally an essen-
tially martial race
The primitive Roman was a high order of husband-
man, who could only when well fed flourish and mul-
tiply. He was adapted to that stage of society when
the remnants of caste gave a certain fixity of tenure
to the farmer, and when prices were maintained by
the cost of communication with foreign countries.
As the world centralized, through conquest, these
barriers were swept away Economic competition
v 1 Histoirc de P Esc lav age, Wallon, ii. 38.
*4
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
became free, land tended to concentiate in fewer
and fewer hands, and this land was worked by
eastern slaves, who reduced the wages of labour to
the lowest pomt at which the human being can
survive.
The effect was to split society in halves, the basis
being servile, and the freemen being separated into
a series of classes, according to the economic power
of the mind. Wealth formed the title to nobility ot
the great oligarchy which thus came to constitute
the core of the Empire. At the head stood the sena-
tors, whose rank was hereditary unless they lost their
property, for to be a senator a man had to be rich.
Augustus fixed $48,000 as the minimum of the sena-
torial fortune, and made up the deficiency to certain
favouied families, 1 but Tiberius summarily ejected
spendthrifts 2 All Latin literature is redolent of
money. Tacitus, with an opulent connection, never
failed to speak with disdain of the base-born, or, in
other words, of the less prosperous. " Poppaeus
Sabinus, a man of humble birth/* raised to position
by the caprice of two emperors; 2 “Cassius Severus,
a man of mean extraction”; 4 and, in the poetry
of antiquity, there are few more famous lines than
those in which Juvenal has described the burden of
poverty ;
“ Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi.” 5
Perhaps no modern writer has been so imbued with
the spirit of the later Empire as Fustel de Coulanges,
1 Suet Aug , ii. 41. 3 Amu* vi. 39. 6 Sat,, iii. 164*
® Tacitus, Ann.) ii. 48, 4 Ibid^ iv, 21.
X* THE ROMANS 1 5
and on this subject he has been emphatic. Not only
were the Romans not democratic, but at no period of
her history did Rome love equality In the Republic
rank was determined by wealth. The census was
the basis of the social system. Every citizen had
to declare his fortune before a magistrate, and his
grade was then assigned him. “ Poverty and wealth
established the legal differences between men ”
The first lme of demarcation lay between those
who owned land and those who did not. The former
were asstdui : householders rooted m the soil. The
latter were proletarians. The proletarians were equal
in their poverty; but the assidui were unequal m
their wealth, and were consequently divided into five
classes. Among these categories all was unequal —
taxes, military service, and political rights. They
did not mix together.
“ If one transports oneself to the last century of
the Republic . . . one finds there an aristocracy as
strongly consolidated as the ancient patrician .
At the summit came the senatorial order. To be-
long to it the first condition was to possess a great
foitune . . . The Roman mind did not understand
that a poor man could belong to the aristocracy, or
that a rich man was not part of it ” 1
Archaic customs lingered late m Rome, for the city
was not a centre of commercial exchanges ; and long
after the death of Alexander, when Greece passed its
meridian, the Republic kept its copper coinage. Regu-
lus farmed his field with a single slave and a hired ser-
vant, and there was, in truth, nothing extraordinary
in the famous meeting with Cmcinnatus at the plough,
1 V Invasion Germanique, Fustel de Coulanges, 146-157.
l6 CIVILIZATION AND DKCAY CHAP
although such simplicity astonished a contemporary
of Augustus Advancing centralization swept away
these ancient customs, a centralization whose march
is, perhaps, as sharply marked by the migration of
vagrants to the cities, as by any single phenomenon.
Vagrant paupers formed the proletariat for whose re-
lief the “ Frumentarire Leges ” were framed ; and yet,
though poor-laws in some form are considered a neces-
sity in modern times, few institutions of antiquity
have been more severely criticised than those regulat-
ing charity. From the time of Cato downward, the
tendency has been to maintain that at Rome dema-
gogues fed the rabble at the cost of the lives of the
free-holders
Probably the exact converse is the truth ; the pub
lie gifts of food appear to have been the effect of
the rum of agriculture, and not its cause After the
Italian husbandmen had been made insolvent by the
competition of races of lower vitality, they flocked
starving to the capital, but it was only reluctantly
that the great speculators in grain, who controlled
the Senate, admitted the necessity of granting State
aid to the class whom they had destroyed.
Long before the Punic Wars the Caithaginians
had farmed Sicily on capitalistic principles ; that is
to say, they had stocked domains with slaves, and had
traded on the basis of large sales and narrow profits.
The Romans when they annexed the island only car-
ried out this system to its logical end. Having all
Asia Minor to draw upon for labour, they deliberately
starved and overworked their field-hands, since it was
cheaper to buy others than to lose command of the
market. The familiar story of the outbreak of the
t.
THE ROMANS
1 7
Servile War, about 134 b c , shows how far the con
temporaries of the Sicilian speculators believed them
capable of going
Damopbilus, an opulent Sicilian landlord, being one
day implored by his slaves to have pity on their naked-
ness and misery, indignantly demanded why they went
hungry and cold, with arms in their hands, and the
country before them Then he bound them to stakes
and flayed them with the lash . 1
The reduction of Syracuse by Marcellus broke the
Carthaginian power in the island, and, after the fall
of Agrigentum in 210 b c., the pacification of the
country went on rapidly. Probably from the outset,
even in the matter of transportation, the provinces of
the mainland were at a disadvantage because of the
cheapness of sea freights, but at all events the open-
ing of the Sicilian grain trade had an immediate and
disastrous effect on Italy. The migration of vagrants
to Rome began forthwith, and within seven years,
203 b c , a public distribution of wheat took place,
probably by the advice of Scipio. Nevertheless the
charity was private and not gratuitous On the con-
trary, a charge of six sesterces, or twenty-five cents
the bushel, was made, apparently near half the mar-
ket rate, a price pretty regularly maintained on such
occasions down to the Empire This interval com-
prehended the whole period of the Sicilian supremacy
in the corn trade, for in 30 b c. Egypt was annexed
by Augustus.
The distress which followed upon free trade with
Egypt finally broke down the resistance of the rich to
1 Diod. xxxiv, 38. On the subject of the Sicilian slavery, see Htstoin
de PEsclavage , Wallon, ii 300 et seq .
C
1 8 CIV I LIZA 1 ION AXJi I*F( A\ chap
gratuitous relief for the poor. Previously the oppo-
sition to State aid had been so stubborn that until
123 bc, no legal piousion whatever was made for
paupers ; and yet the account left by Polybius of the
condition of Lombaidy toward the middle of the
second century shows the complete wieck of agri-
culture
“The yield of corn in this district is so abundant
that wheat is often sold at four obols a Sicilian medim-
nus [about eight cents b\ the bushel or a little less
than two sesterces], bailey at two, or a metietes of
wine for an equal measure of barley. . . . The cheap-
ness and abundance of all articles of food may also be
clearly shown from the fact that tiavellers m these
parts, when stopping at inns, do not bargain for par*
ticulai articles, but simply ask what the charge is per
head foi boatd. And for the most part the inn-
keepeis are content " with half an as (about half a
cent) a day 1
These prices indicate a lack of demand so complete,
that the debtors among the peasantry must have been
ruined, and yet tax-payers remained obdurate. Gra-
tuitous distributions were tried in 58 nx* by the Lex
Clodia, but soon abandoned as costly, and Caesar
applied himself to reducing the outlay on the needy.
He hoped to reach his end by cutting down the
number of grain-receivers one-half, by providing that
no grain should be given away except on presentation
of a ticket, and by ordering that the number of ticket-
holders should not be increased. The law of nature
prevailed against him, for the absorption of Egypt in
the economic system of the Empire, marked, in the
1 Polybius, iu 15, Shuck burgh’s trans.
THE ROMANS
I.
19
words of Mommsen “the end of the old and the
beginning of a new epoch/’ 1
Among the races which have survived through
ages upon scanty nutriment, none have, perhaps,
excelled the Egyptian fellah Even m the East no
peasantry has probably been so continuously over-
worked, so under-paid, and so taxed.
<e If it is the aim of the State to work out the utmost pos-
sible amount from its teiritory, m the Old World the Lagids
were absolutely the masters of statecraft. In particular they
were in this sphere the instructors and the models of the
Csesars .” 2
In the first century Egypt was, as it still is, pre-
eminently a land of cheap labour , but it was also some-
thing more. The valley of the Nile, enriched by the
overflow of the river, returned an hundred-fold, with-
out manure , and this wonderful district was adminis-
tered, not like an ordinary province, but like a private
farm belonging to the citizens of Rome The em-
peror reserved it to himself How large a revenue
he drew from it is immaterial , it suffices that one-
third of all the grain consumed m the capital came
from thence. According to Athenseus, some of the
grain ships m use were about 420 feet long by 57
broad, or nearly the size of a modern steamer in the
Atlantic trade. 3 From the beginning of the Christian
era, therefore, the wages of the Egyptian fellah regu-
lated the price of the cereals within the limits where
trade was made free by Roman consolidation, and it
1 Provinces oj the Roman Empire , Mommsen, 11. 233,
a Ibid, 11. 239
8 Deipnosophists, v. 37,
20
CIVII.I/. \riON AND DECAY
CHAP,
is safe to say that, thenceforward, such of the highly
nourished races as were constrained to sustain this
competition, weie doomed to perish It is even ex-
tremely doubtful whether the distributions of grain
by the government materially accelerated the march
of the decay Spain should have been far enough
removed from the centre of exchanges to have had a
certain local market of her own, and yet Martial,
writing about ioo a d , described the Spanish hus-
bandman eating and drinking the produce he could
not sell, and receiving but four sesterces the bushel
for his wheat, which was the price paid by paupers
in the time of Cicero . 1
Thus by economic necessity great estates were
formed in the hands of the economically strong. As
the \alue of ceieals fell, arable land passed into vine-
yaids or pasture, and, the provinces being unable to
sustain their old population, eviction went on with
gigantic strides Had the Romans possessed the
versatility to enable them to turn to industry, facto-
ries might have afforded a temporary shelter to this
surplus labour, but manufactures were monopolized
by the East ; therefore the beggared peasantry were
either enslaved for debt, or wandered as penniless
paupers to the cities, where gradually their numbers
so increased as to enable them to extort a gratuitous
dole Indeed, during the third century, their condi-
tion fell so low that they were unable even to cook
the food freely given them, and Aurelian had their
bread baked at public ovens . 2
As centralization advanced with the acceleration
of human movement, force expressed itself more and
1 Martial, £J>., xii. 76. 2 Vopiscus Aurttianm, 35,
I. THE ROMANS 21
more exclusively through money, and the channel in
which money chose to flow was m investments m
land. The social system fostered the growth of large
estates. The Romans always had an inordinate re-
spect for the landed magnate, and a contempt for
the tradesman. Industry was reputed a servile occu-
pation, and, under the Republic, the citizen who per-
formed manual labour was almost depnved of political
rights. Even commerce was thought so unworthy
of the aristocracy that it was forbidden to senators.
“The soil was always, m this Roman society, the
principal source and, above all, the only measure of
wealth/ *
A law of Tiberius obliged capitalists to invest two-
thirds of their property in land Trajan not only
exacted of aspirants to office that they should be rich,
but that they should place at least one-third of their
fortune in Italian real estate ; and, down to the end
of the Empire, the senatorial class “ was at the same
time the class of great landed proprietors.” 1
The more property consolidated, the more resist-
less the momentum of capital became Under the
Empire small properties grew steadily rarer, and the
fewer they were, the greater the disadvantage at
which their owners stood. The small farmer could
hardly sustain himself in competition with the great
landlord. The grand domain of the capitalist was
not only provided with a full complement of labour-
ers, vine-dressers, and shepherds, but with the neces-
sary artisans The poor farmer depended on his rich
neighbour even for his tools. “He was what a work-
man would be to-day who, amidst great factories,
1 IS Invasion Germamque , Fustel de Coulanges, 190.
22
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
worked alone /' 1 He bought dearer and sold cheaper,
his margin of piofit steadily shiunk ; at last he was
reduced to a bare subsistence in good years, and the
first bad harvest left him bankrupt
The Roman husbandman and soldier was doomed,
for nature had turned against him ; the task of his-
tory is but to ascertain his fate, and tiace the fort-
unes of his countiy after he had gone*
Of the evicted, many certainly chifted to the cities
and lived upon charity, forming the proletariat, a class
alike despised and lost to self-respect : some were
sold mto slavery, others starved ; but when all deduc-
tions have been made, a surplus is left to be accounted
for, and there is reason to suppose that these stayed
on their farms as tenants to the purchasers.
In the first century such tenancies were common.
The lessee remained a freeman, under no subjection
to his landlord, piovidcd he paid his lent; but in
case of default the law was rigorous* Everything
upon the land was liable as a pledge, and the tenant
himself was held in pawn unless he could give secur-
ity for what he owed. In case, therefore, of pi obliged
agricultural depletion, all that was left of the an-
cient rural population could hardly fail to pass into
the condition of seifs, bound to the land by debts
beyond the possibility of payment.
That such a depression actually occurred, and that
it extended through several centuries, is certain. Nor
is it possible that its only cause was Egyptian compe-
tition, for had it been so, an equilibrium would have
been reached when the African exchanges had been
1 Le Colomt Romm n Rtchenkes sur quelqtm Prohlhnes d'Hntoirci
Fustel de Coulanges, 143.
THE ROMANS
23
I*
adjusted, whereas a continuous decline of prices went
on until long after the fall of the Western Empire.
The only other possible explanation of the phenome-
non is that a contraction of the currency began soon
after the death of Augustus, and continued without
much interruption down to Charlemagne. Between
the fall of Carthage and the birth of Christ, the
Romans plundered the richest portions of the world
west of the Indus , in the second century, North
Africa, Macedon, Spam, and parts of Greece and Asia
Minor ; in the first, Athens, Cappadocia, Syria, Gaul,
and Egypt. These countries yielded an enormous
mass of treasure, which was brought to Rome as spoil
of war, but which was not fixed there by commercial
exchanges, and which continually tended to flow back
to the natural centres of trade. Therefore, when
conquests ceased, the sources of new bullion dried
up, and the quantity held in Italy diminished as the
balance of trade grew more and more unfavourable.
Under Augustus the precious metals were plenty
and cheap, and t}ie prices of commodities were cor-
respondingly high ; but a full generation had hardly
passed before a dearth began to be felt, which mani-
fested itself in a debasement of the coinage, the
surest sign of an appreciation of the currency.
Speaking generally, the manufactures and the more
costly products of antiquity came from countries to
the east of the Adriatic, while the West was mainly
agricultural , and nothing is better established than
that luxuries were dear under the Empire, and food
cheap . 1 Therefore exchanges were unfavourable to
the capital from the outset; the expoits did not
1 Organisation Financiers chez ks Remains , Marquardt, 65 et
24
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
cover the imports, and each year a deficit had to be
made good m specie.
The Romans perfectly understood the situation,
and this adverse balance caused them much uneasi-
ness. Tiberius dwelt upon it in a letter to the Senate
as early as 22 a d. In that year the sediles brought
forward proposals for certain sumptuary reforms, and
the Senate, probably to rid itself of a delicate ques-
tion, referred the matter to the executive. Most
of the emperor's reply is interesting, but there is
one particularly noteworthy paragraph. “ If a re-
form is in truth intended, where must it begin ?
and how am I to restore the simplicity of ancient
times ? . . . How shall we reform the taste for dress ?
. . How are we to deal with the peculiar articles
of female vanity, and, in particular, with that rage for
jewels and precious trinkets, which drams the Empire
of its wealth, and sends, in exchange for bawbles, the
money of the Commonwealth to foreign nations, and
even to the enemies of Rome ? ” 1 Half a century
later matters were, apparently, worse, for Pliny more
than once returned to the subject. In the twelfth
book of his Natural History, after enumerating the
many well-known spices, perfumes, drugs, and gems,
which have always made the Eastern trade of such
surpassing value, he estimated that at the most mod-
erate computation 100,000,000 sesterces, or about
$4,000,000 in coin, were annually exported to Arabia
and India alone ; and at a time when silk was worth
its weight in gold, the estimate certainly does not
seem excessive. He added, “So dear do pleasures
and women cost us.” 2
1 Tacitus, Ann., Murphy’s trans., lii. 53. 2 Nat. Hist, xii, 18.
I THE ROMANS 25
The drain to Egypt and the Asiatic provinces
could hardly have been much less serious Adrian
almost seems to have been jealous of the former,
for in his letter to Servianus, after having criticised
the people, he remarked that it was also a rich and
productive country “ in which no one was idle/’ and
in which glass, paper and linen were manufactured. 1
The Syrians were both industrial and commercial
Tyre, for example, worked the raw silk of China,
dyed and exported it. The glass of Tyre and Sidon
was famous; the local aristocracy were merchants
and manufacturers, “ and, as later the riches acquired
in the East flowed to Genoa and Venice, so then the
commercial gains of the West flowed back to Tyre
and Apamea ” 2
Within about sixty years from the final consolida-
tion of the Empire under Augustus, this continuous
efflux of the precious metals began to cause the cur-
rency to contract, and prices to fall ; and the first
effect of shrinking values appears to have been a
financial crisis in 33 a.d. Probably the diminution
in the worth of commodities relatively to money,
had already made it difficult for debtors to meet
their liabilities, for Tacitus has prefaced his story by
pointing out that usury had always been a scourge of
Rome, and that just previous to the panic an agita-
tion against the money-lenders had begun with a
view to enforcing the law regarding interest. As
most of the senators were deep in usury they applied
for protection to Tiberius, who granted what amounted
to a stay of proceedings, and then, as soon as the
1 Vopiscus, Saturmnus , 8.
2 Provinces of the Roman Empire , Mommsen, ri. 140,
26
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
capitalists felt themselves safe, they proceeded to
take their revenge, Loans were called, accommoda
tion refused, and mortgagors were ruthlessly sold
out. “ There was great scarcity of money . . and,
on account of sales on execution, com accumulated
in the imperial, or the public treasury Upon this
the Senate ordered that every one should invest two-
thirds of his capital on loan, in Italian real estate,
but the creditors called in the whole, nor did public
opinion allow debtors to compromise/’ Meanwhile
there was great excitement but no relief, “as the
usurers hoarded for the purpose of buying low The
quantity of sales broke the market, and the more
liabilities were extended, the harder liquidation be-
came Many were ruined, and the loss of property
endangered social station and reputation /’ 1 The
panic finally subsided, but contraction went on and
next showed itself, twenty-five years later, in adulter-
ated coinage. From the time of the Punic Wars,
about two centuries and a half before Christ, the
silver denarius, worth nearly seventeen cents, had
been the standard of the Roman currency, and it kept
its weight and purity unimpaired until Nero, when
it diminished fiom fa to fa of a pound of silver, the
pure metal being mixed with fa of copper , 2 Under
Trajan, toward ioo a.d,, the alloy reached twenty per
cent ; under Septimms Severus a hundred years later
it had mounted to fifty or sixty per cent, and by the
time of Elagabalus, 220 a,d , the com had degenerated
into a token of base metal, and was repudiated by the
government,
1 Ann., vi. 16, 17,
2 See Geschichte des JR'dmischm Munztvesens, Mommsen, 756,
I
THE ROMANS
2 7
Something similar happened to the gold. The
aureus, though it kept its fineness, lost in weight
down to Constantine In the reign of Augustus it
equalled one-fortieth of a Roman pound of gold, in
that of Nero one forty-fifth, m that of Caiacalla but
one-fiftieth, m that of Diocletian one-sixtieth, and m
that of Constantine one seventy-second, when the
coin ceased passing by tale and was taken only by
weight. 1
The repudiation of the denarius was an act of
bankruptcy, nor did the financial position improve
while the administration remained at Rome There-
fore the inference is that, toward the middle of the
third century, Italy had lost the treasure she had
won in war, which had gradually gravitated to the
centre of exchanges This inference is confirmed
by history The movements of Diocletian seem to
demonstrate that after 250 a d Rome ceased to be
either the political or commercial capital of the
world
Unquestionably Diocletian must have lived a life
of intense activity at the focus of affairs, to have
raised himself from slavery to the purple at thirty-
nine ; and yet Gibbon thought he did not even visit
Rome until he went thither to celebrate his triumph,
after he had been twenty years upon the throne. He
never seemed anxious about the temper of the city
When proclaimed emperor he ignored Italy and es-
tablished himself at Nicomedia on the Propontis,
where he lived until he abdicated in 305. His per-
sonal preferences evidently did not influence him,
since his successors imitated his policy ; and every-
1 Afonnaies Byzantines , Sabatier, 1, 51, 52.
28
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
thing points to the conclusion that he, and those who
followed him, only yielded to the same resistless
force which fixed the economic capital of the world
upon the Bosphorus. In the case of Constantine the
operation of this force was conspicuous, for it was
not only powerful enough to overcome the habit of a
lifetime, but to cause him to undertake the gigantic
task of building Constantinople.
Constantine was proclaimed in Britain in 306, when
only thirty-two. Six years later he defeated Maxen-
tius, and then governed the West alone until his
war with Licmius, whom he captured in 323 and
afterward put to death Thus, at fifty, he returned
to the East, after an absence of nearly twenty years,
and his first act was to choose Byzantium as his cap-
ital, a city nearly opposite Nicomedia.
The sequence of events seems plain. Very soon
after the insolvency of the government at Rome, the
administration quitted the city and moved toward
the boundary between Europe and Asia ; there, after
some forty years of vacillation, it settled perma-
nently at the true seat of exchanges, for Constanti-
nople remained the economic centre of the earth for
more than eight centuries.
Similar conclusions may be drawn from the fluctu-
ations of the currency. At Rome the coin could
not be maintained at the standard, because of adverse
exchanges , but when the political and economic cen-
tres had come to coincide, at a point upon the Bos-
phorus, depreciation ceased, and the aureus fell no
further.
This migration of capital, which caused the rise of
Constantinople, was the true opening of the Middle
I. THE ROMANS 29
Ages, for it occasioned the gradual decline of the
rural population, and thus brought about the disinte-
gration of the West Victory carried wealth to
Rome, and wealth manifested its power in a perma-
nent police ; as the attack in war gained upon the
defence, and individual resistance became impossible,
transportation grew cheap and safe, and human move-
ment was accelerated Then economic competition
began, and intensified as centralization advanced,
telling always in favour of the acutest intellect
and the cheapest labour. Soon, exchanges became
permanently unfavourable, a steady drain of bul-
lion set in to the East, and, as the outflow depleted
the treasure amassed at Rome by plunder, contrac-
tion began, and with contraction came that fall of
prices which first ruined, then enslaved, and finally
exterminated, the native rural population of Italy.
In the time of Diocletian, the ancient silver cur-
rency had long been repudiated, and, in his well-
known edict, he spoke of prices as having risen nine-
fold, when reckoned in the denaru of base metal ;
the purchasing power of pure gold and silver had,
however, risen very considerably in all the western
provinces Nor was this all. It appears to be a nat-
ural law that when social development has reached
a certain stage, and capital has accumulated suffi-
ciently, the class which has had the capacity to
absorb it shall try to enhance the value of their
property by legislation. This is done most easily
by reducing the quantity of the currency, which is
a legal tender for the payment of debts, A currency
obviously gains in power as it shrinks in volume, and
the usurers of Constantinople intuitively condensed
30
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
to the utmost that of the Empire After the insol-
vency under Elagahalus, payments were exacted m
gold by weight, and as it grew scarcer its value rose.
Aurelian issued an edict limiting its use in the arts ;
and while there are abundant reasons for mfeiring
that silver also gained m purchasing power, gold far
outstripped it. Although no statistics remain by
which to establish, >vith any exactness, the movement
of silver in compaiison with commodities, the ratio
between the precious metals at different epochs is
known, and gold appears to have doubled between
Caesar and Romulus Augustulus
47 b.c.
i a d under Augustus,
100-200, Trajan to Severus,
310, Constantine,
450, Theodosius IL,
gold stoo 1 to silver as
u a «
a u «
U it ts
u a «
1 • s 9
1 9-3
1 . 9-10
1:125
x. iS
As gold had become the sole legal tender, this
change of ratio represents a diminution, during the
existence of the Western Empire, of at least fifty per
cent in the value of property in relation to debt, leav-
ing altogether out of view the appieciation of silver
itself, which was so considerable that the government
was unable to maintain the denarius . 1
Resistance to the force of centralized wealth was
vain. Aurelian’s attempt to reform the mints is said
to have caused a rebellion, which cost him the lives
of seven thousand of his soldiers ; and though his
policy was continued by Probus, and Diocletian coined
both metals again at a ratio, expansion was so antago-
nistic to the interests of the monied class that, by
1 Mommies Byzantines, Sabatier, i. 50.
I
THE ROMANS
31
360, silver was definitely discarded, and gold was
made by law the only legal tender for the payment
of debts 1 Furthermore, the usurers protected them-
selves against any possible tampering with the mints
by providing that the solidus should pass by weight
and not by tale , that is to say, they reserved to them-
selves the right to reject any golden sou which con-
tained less than one seventy-second of a pound of
standard metal, the weight fixed by Constantine. 2
Thus, at a time when the exhaustion of the mines
caused a failure in the annual supply of bullion, the
old composite currency was split in two, and the half
retained made to pass by weight alone, so as to throw
the loss by clipping and abrasion upon the debtor.
So strong a contraction engendered a steady fall of
prices, a fall which tended rather to increase than
diminish as time went on But in prolonged periods
of decline m the market value of agricultural prod-
ucts, farmers can with difficulty meet a money rent,
because the sale of their crops leaves a greater deficit
each year, and finally a time comes when insolvency
can no longer be postponed.
In his opening chapter Gibbon described the Em-
pire under the Antonines as enjoying “ a happy period
of more than fourscore years” of peace and prosperity;
and yet nothing is more certain than that this halcyon
age was in reality an interval of agricultural ruin. On
this point Pliny was explicit, and Pliny was a large
land-owner.
He wrote one day to Calvisius about an investment,
and went at length into the condition of the property.
1 Geschichte des Komischen Mtlnswesens , Mommsen, 837.
2 Mommies Byzantines , Sabatier, 1. 51, 52.
32
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
A large estate adjoining his own was for sale, and he
was tempted to buy, “for the land was fertile, rich,
and well watered/' the fields produced vines and wood
which promised a fair return, and yet this natural
fruitfulness was marred by the misery of the husband-
men He found that the former owner “had often
seized the 4 pignora/ or pledges [that is, all the prop-
erty the tenants possessed] ; and though, by so doing,
he had temporarily reduced their arrears, he had left
them " without the means of tilling the soil. These
tenants were freemen, who had been unable to meet
their rent because of falling prices, and who, when
they had lost their tools, cattle, and household effects,
were left paupers on the farms they could neither cul-
tivate nor abandon Consequently the property had
suffered, the rent had declined, and for these reasons
and “the general hardness of the times/' its value had
fallen from five million to three million sesterces . 1
In another letter he explained that he was detained
at home making new arrangements with his tenants,
who were apparently insolvent, for “ in the last five
yeais, in spite of great concessions, the arrears have
increased. For this reason most [tenants] take no
trouble to diminish their debt, which they despair of
paying. Indeed, they plunder and consume what
there is upon the land, since they think they cannot
save for themselves/' The remedy he proposed was
to make no more money leases, but to farm on
shares . 2
The tone of these letters shows that there was
nothing unusual in all this. Pliny nowhere intimated
that the tenants were to blame, or that better men
1 Hiny’s Letters, in. 19. 2 IhL, ix. 37.
I.
THE ROMANS
33
were to be had On the contrary, he said emphati-
cally that in such hard times money could not be
collected, and therefore the interest of the landlord
was to cultivate his estates on shares, taking the
single precaution to place slaves over the tenants as
overseers and leceivers of the crops.
In the same way the digest referred to such arrears
as habitual . 1 In still another letter to Trajan, Pliny
observed, “Continue stenlitates cogunt me de remis-
sionibus cogitare.” 2 Certainly these insolvent farm-
ers could have held no better position when working
on shares than before their disasters, for as bankrupts
they were wholly in their creditors’ power, and could
be hunted like slaves, and brought back in fetters if
they fled. They were tied to the property by a debt
which never could be paid, and they and their descend-
ants were doomed to stay for ever as coloni or serfs,
chattels to be devised or sold as part of the realty.
In the words of the law, “they were considered
slaves of the land .” 3 The ancient martial husband-
man had thus “fallen from point to point, from debt
to debt, into an almost perpetual subjection.” 4 De-
liverance was impossible, for payment was out of the
question. He was bound to the soil for his life, and
his children after him inherited his servitude with
his debt
The customs, according to which the coloni held,
were infinitely varied ; they differed not only between
estates, but between the hands on the same estate.
1 Digest^ xix 2, 15, and xxxm. 7, 20.
2 Letters , x 24. On this whole subject see Le Colonat Romam *
Recherches sur quelques Problemes d’JLisioire, Fustel de Coulanges, ch. i.
8 Code of Justinian , xi. 51, I.
4 Le Colonat Romam , Fustel de Coulanges, 21.
D
34
tiviu/vriov ANIl 1)K w
CHAP
On the whole, however, the life must have been hard,
for the seifs of the Empire did not multiply, and the
scarcity of mini labour became a chrome disease.
Yet, relatively, the position of the coLnus was good,
for his wife and ehildien wcie his own , slavery was
the ulcer which ate into the flesh, and the Roman
fiscal system, coupled as it was with usury, was cal-
culated to enslave all but the oligarchy who made the
laws.
The taxes of the piovinces were assessed by the
censors and then sold for cash to the publicans, who
undertook the collection. Italy was at first ex-
empted, but aftei her bankiuptcy she shared the
common fate Companies were formed to handle
these ventures. The knights usually subscribed the
capital and divided the piofits, which corresponded
with the seventy of their administration ; and, as the
Roman conquests extended, these companies grew
too powerful to he controlled. The only officials in
a position to act were the provincial governors, who
w'ere afraid to interfere, and pieferrcd to share in
the gains of the traffic, rather than to tun the risk
of exciting the wrath of so dangerous an enemy. 1
According to Pliny the collection of a rent in
money had become impossible in the reign of Tra-
jan. The reason was that with a contracting cur-
lency prices of produce fell, and each year’s crop
netted less than that of the year before; therefore
a rent moderate m one decade was extortionate in
the next. But taxes did not fall with the fall in val-
ues; on the contrary, the tendency of centralization is
always toward a more costly administration. Under
1 Organisation Financiers chez les Remains, Marijuardt, 240) Les
Manieurs d % Argent h Rome, Ddoume, 377.
r.
THE ROMANS
35
Augustus, one emperor with a moderate household
sufficed , but in the third century Diocletian found
it necessary to reorganize the government under four
Caesars, and everything became specialized in the
same proportion
In this way the people were caught between the
upper and the nether millstone The actual quantity
of bullion taken from them was greater, the lower
prices of their property fell, and arrears of taxes
accumulated precisely as Pliny described the accu-
mulation of arrears of rent. These arrears were
carried over from reign to reign, and even from
century to century ; and Petronius, the father-in-law
of Valens, is said to have precipitated the rebellion
of Procopius, by exacting the tribute unpaid since
the death of Aurelian a hundred years before
The processes employed in the collection of the
revenue were severe. Torture was freely used , 1 and
slavery was the fate of defaulters. Armed with such
power, the publicans held debtors at their mercy.
Though usury was forbidden, the most lucrative
part of the trade was opening accounts with the
treasury, assuming debts, and charging interest some-
times as high as fifty per cent Though, as prices
fell, the pressure grew severer, the abuses of the
administration were never perhaps worse than toward
the end of the Republic. In his oration against
Verres, Cicero said the condition of the people had
•become intolerable . “ All the provinces are in mourn-
ing, all the nations that are free are complaining;
every kingdom is expostulating with us about our
covetousness and injustice.” 2
1 See Decline and Fall t eh. xvii
2 In C, Verrem , IV. lxxxix.
36
UVlUMHoN AND DECAY
CHAP.
The well-known transactions of Brutus are typical
of what went on wherever the Romans marched.
Brutus lent the Senate of Salaminia at forty-eight
per cent a year. As the contract was illegal, he
obtained two decrees of the Senate at Rome for
his protection, and then to enforce payment of his
interest, Scaptius, his man of business, borrowed
from the governor of Cilicia a detachment of troops.
With this he blockaded the Senate so closely that
several members starved to death. The Salamin-
ians, wanting at all costs to free themselves from
such a load, offered to pay off both interest and
capital at once ; but to this Brutus would not con-
sent, and to impose his own terms upon the province
he demanded from Cicero more troops, “only fifty
horse.” 1
When at last, by such proceedings, the debtors
were so exhausted that no torment could wring more
from them, they were sold as slaves ; Nicodemus,
king of Bithynia, on being reproached for not fur-
nishing his contingent of auxiliaries, replied that
all his able-bodied subjects had been taken by the
farmers of the revenue . 2 * Nor, though the adminis-
tration doubtless was better regulated under the
Empire than under the Republic, did the oppression
of the provinces cease. Juvenal, who wrote about
too, implored the young noble taking possession of
his government to put some curb upon his avarice,
“to pity the poverty of the allies. You see the
bones of kings sucked of their very marrow .” 8 And
1 Clara's Letters , Ad Att. vi 2; also Ad Att. v< 21, and vi. x„
2 Diod. xxxvi. 3* See also Histoire de VEsdavage, Wallon, il 42, 44.
* Satire, viii. 89, 90,
L
THE ROMANS
37
though the testimony of Juvenal may be rejected as
savouring too much of poetical licence, Pliny must
always be treated with respect. When Maximus was
sent to Achaia, Pliny thought it well to write him a
long letter of advice, in which he not only declared
that to wrest from the Greeks the shadow of liberty
left them would be “ durum, ferum, barbarumque ; ”
but adjured him to try to remember what each
city had been, and not to despise it for what it
was. 1
Most impressive, perhaps, of all, is the statement
of Dio Cassius that the revolt led by Boadicea in
Britain in 61 a.d , which cost the Romans seventy
thousand lives, was provoked by the rapacity of
Seneca, who, having forced a loan of ten million
drachmas ($1,670,000) on the people at usurious in-
terest, suddenly withdrew his money, thereby inflict-
ing intense suffering 2 As Pliny said with bitterness
and truth, “The arts of avarice were those most
cultivated at Rome.” 3
The stronger type exterminated the weaker; the
money-lender killed out the husbandman ; the race
of soldiers vanished, and the farms, whereon they
had once flourished, were left desolate. To quote
the words of Gibbon: “The fertile and happy prov-
ince of Campania . extended between the sea
and the Apennines from the Tiber to the Silarus.
Within sixty years after the death of Constantine,
and on the evidence of an actual survey, an exemp-
tion was granted in favour of three hundred and
thirty thousand English acres of desert and unculti-
1 Letters, m 24 2 Die Cassius , Ixii. 2.
8 Nat, Hist., xiv., Promnium .
38
CIVILIZATION* \\D I)KT\Y
CHAT.
vated land ; which amounted to one-eighth of the
whole suiface of the province." 1 *
It is true that Gibbon, in this paragiaph, described
Italy as she was in the fourth centuiy, just before the
barbarian invasions, but a similar fate had overtaken
the provinces under the Caesars. In the reign of
Domitian, according to Plutarch, Greece had been
almost depopulated.
“ She can with much difficulty raise three thousand men,
which number the single city of Megara sent heretofore to
the battle of Platsea. . . . For of what use would the
oracle be now, which was heretofore at Tegyia or at Ptous?
For scarcely shall you meet, in a whole day’s time, with so
much as a herdsman or shepherd in those parts.” 1
Wallon has observed that Rome, “in the early
times of the Republic, was chiefly preoccupied with
having a numerous and strong population of freemen.
Under the Empire she had but one anxiety — taxes .” 3
To speak with more precision, force changed the
channel through which it operated. Native farmers
and native soldiers were needless when such material
could be bought cheaper in the North or East. With
money the cohorts could be filled with Germans;
with money, slaves and serfs could be settled upon
the Italian fields; and for the last century, before
the great inroads began, one chief problem of the
imperial administration was the regulation of the in-
flow of new blood from without, lacking which the
social system must have collapsed.
1 Decline and Fall, ch, xvii*
- Morals, Tram . ^1718, 4, II.
3 Histoire tie TEst lavage, in, 268.
THE ROMANS
39
i.
The later campaigns on the Rhine and the Danube
were really slave-hunts on a gigantic scale Probus
brought back sixteen thousand men from Germany,
“the bravest and most robust of their youth,” and
distributed them in knots of fifty or sixty among the
legions. “Their aid was now become necessary.
. . . The infrequency of marriage, and the ruin of
agriculture, affected the principles of population ;
and not only destroyed the strength of the present,
but intercepted the hope of future generations ” x
His importations of agricultural labour were much
more considerable In a single settlement in Thrace,
Probus established one hundred thousand Bastarnae ;
Constantius Chlorus is said to have made Gaul flour-
ish by the herds of slaves he distributed among the
landlords; in 370, large numbers of Alemanni were
planted in the valley of the Po, and on the vast spaces
of the public domain there were barbarian villages
where the native language and customs were pre-
served*
Probably none of these Germans came as freemen.
Many, of course, were captives sold as slaves, but
perhaps the majority were serfs. Frequently a tribe,
hard pressed by enemies, asked leave to pass the
frontier, and settle as tributaries, that is to say as
colanL On one such occasion Constantius II. was
nearly murdered. A body of Limigantes, who had
made a raid, surrendered, and petitioned to be given
lands at any distance, provided they might have pro-
tection. The emperor was delighted at the prospect
of such a harvest of labourers, to say nothing of
recruits, and went among them to receive their sub*
1 Decline and Fall \ ch. xii*
40
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
mission. Seeing him alone, the barbarians attacked
him, and he escaped with difficulty His troops
slaughtered the Geimans to the last man
This unceasing emigration gradually changed the
character of the rural population, and a similar altera-
tion took place in the army. As early as the time
of Caesar, Italy was exhausted ; his legions were
mainly raised in Gaul, and as the native farmers
sank into serfdom or slavery, and then at last van-
ished, recruits were drawn more and more from
beyond the limits of the Empire. At first they were
taken singly, afterwards in tribes and nations, so
that, when Aetius defeated Attila at Chalons, the
battle was fought by the Visigoths under Theodoric,
and the equipment of the Romans and Huns was so
similar that when drawn up the lines “presented the
image of civil war.”
This military metamorphosis indicated the extinc-
tion of the martial type, and it extended throughout
society. Rome not only failed to breed the common
soldier, she also failed to produce generals. After
the first century, the change was marked. Trajan
was a Spaniard, Septimius Severus an African, Aure-
lian an Illyrian peasant, Diocletian a Dalmatian
slave, Constantius Chlorus a Daidanian noble, and
the son of Constantius, by a Dacian woman, was the
great Constantine.
All these men were a peculiar species of military
adventurer, for they combined qualities which made
them, not only effective chiefs of police, but accept-
able as heads of the civil bureaucracy, which repre-
sented capital. Severus was the type, and Severus has
never been better described than by Machiavelli, who
I.
THE ROMANS
41
said he united the ferocity of the lion to the cunning
of the fox. This bureaucracy was the core of the con-
solidated mass called the Empire ; it was the embodi-
ment of money, the ultimate expression of force, and
it recognized and advanced men who were adapted to
its needs. When such men were to be found, the
administration was thought good ; but when no one
precisely adapted for the purple appeared, and an
ordinary officer had to be hired to keep the peace,
friction was apt to follow, and the soldier, even
though of the highest ability, was often removed.
Both Stilicho and Aetius were murdered.
The monied oligarchy which formed this bureau-
cracy was a growth as characteristic of the high
centralization of the age, as a sacred caste is charac-
teristic of decentralization. Perhaps the capitalistic
class of the later Empire has been better understood
and appreciated by Fustel de Coulanges than by any
other historian.
u Ail the documents which show the spirit of the epoch
show that this noblesse was as much honoured by the govern-
ment as respected by the people. ... It was from it that the
imperial government chose ordinarily its high functionaries.”
These functionaries were not sought among the
lower classes. The high offices were not given as a
reward of long and faithful service; they belonged
by prescriptive right to the great families. The
Empire made the wealthy, senators, praetors, consuls,
and governors ; all dignities, except only the military,
were practically hereditary in the opulent class.
“ This class is rich and the government is poor. This
class is mistress of the larger part of the soil , it is in posses-
42
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
riiAP.
sion of the local dignities, of the administrative and judicial
functions. The government has only the appearance of
power, and an aimed force which is continually diminish-
ing .. .
“The aristocracy had the land, the wealth, the distinc-
tion, the education, ordinarily the morality of existence , it
did not know how to light and to command It withdrew
itself from military service ; more than that, it despised it.
It was one of the characteristic signs of this society to have
always placed the civil functions not on a level with, but
much above, the grades of the army. It esteemed much
the profession of the doctor, of the professor, of the advo-
cate j it did not esteem that of the officer and the soldier,
and left it to men of low estate.” 1
This supremacy of the economic instinct trans-
formed all the relations of life, the domestic as well
as the military The family ceased to be a unit, the
members of which cohered from the necessity of self-
defence, and became a business association. Mar-
riage took the form of a contract, dissoluble at the
will of either party, and, as it was somewhat costly,
it grew rare. As with the drain of their bullion to
the East, which crushed their fanners, the Romans
were conscious, as Augustus said, that sterility must
finally deliver their city into the hand of the barbari-
ans. 2 They knew this and they strove to avert their
fate, and there is little in history more impressive
than the impotence of the ancient civilization in its
conflict with nature. About the opening of the Chris-
tian era the State addressed itself to the task. Prob-
ably m the year 4 ad,, the emperor succeeded in
obtaining the first legislation favouring marriage, and
1 V Invasion Germaniqut, 200, 204, 223,
s Dio Cassius } lvi. 7,
L THE ROMANS 43
this enactment not proving effective, it was supple-
mented by the famous Leges Julia and Papia Pop-
paeaof the year 9 In the spring, at the games, the
knights demanded the repeal of these laws, and then
Augustus, having called them to the Foium, made
them the well-known speech, whose violence now
seems incredible. Those who were single were the
worst of criminals, they were murdereis, they were
impious, they were destroyers of their race, they re-
sembled brigands or wild beasts. He asked the
eqmfes if they expected men to start from the
ground to replace them, as in the fable, and de-
clared m bitterness that while the government lib-
erated slaves for the sole purpose of keeping up the
number of citizens, the children of the Marcii, of the
Fabii, of the Valerii, and the Julii, let their names
perish from the earth. 1
In vain celibacy was made almost criminal In
vain celibates were declared incapable of inheriting,
while fathers were offered every bribe, were pre-
ferred in appointments to office, were even given
the choice seats at games ; in the words of Tacitus,
“not for that did marriage and children increase, for
the advantages of childlessness prevailed ” 2 All that
was done was to breed a race of informers, and to
stimulate the lawyers to fresh chicane. 3
When wealth became force, the female might be as
strong as the male ; therefore she was emancipated.
1 Dio Cassius, lvi. 5-8.
2 Ann , in. 25
» Jfad>, xxvm. Latin liteiature is full of references to these famous
laws. Tacitus, Pliny, Juvenal, and Martial constantly speak of them.
There were also many commentaries on them by Roman jurists.
44
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAE
Through easy divorce she came to stand on an equal-
ity with the man in the marriage contract. She con-
trolled her own property, because she could defend
it ; and as she had power, she exercised political priv-
ileges In the third century Julia Domna, Julia Ma-
mma, Sosemias, and others, sat in the Senate, or
conducted the administration.
The evolution of this centralized society was as
logical as every other work of nature. When force
reached the stage where it expressed itself exclusively
through money, the governing class ceased to be
chosen because they were valiant or eloquent, ar-
tistic, learned, or devout, and were selected solely
because they had the faculty of acquiring and keep-
ing wealth. As long as the weak retained enough
vitality to produce something which could be absorbed,
this oligarchy was invincible ; and for very many years
after the native peasantry of Gaul and Italy had per-
ished under the load, new blood injected from more
tenacious races kept the dying civilization alive.
The weakness of the monied class lay in their very
power, for they not only killed the producer, but in
the strength of their acquisitiveness they failed to
propagate themselves. The State feigned to regard
marriage as a debt, and yet the opulent families died
out. In the reign of Augustus all but fifty of the
patrician houses had become extinct, and subse-
quently the emperor seemed destined to remain the
universal heir through bequests of the childless.
With the peasantry the case was worse. By the
second century barbarian labour had to be imported
to till the fields, and even the barbarians lacked the
tenacity of life necessary to endure the strain. They
L
THE ROMANS
45
ceased to breed, and the population dwindled. Then,
somewhat suddenly, the collapse came With shrink-
ing numbers, the sources of wealth ran dry, the rev-
enue failed to pay the police, and on the efficiency
of the police the life of this un warlike civilization
hung.
In early ages every Roman had been a land-owner,
and every land-owner had been a soldier, serving with-
out pay. To fight had been as essential a part of life
as to plough. But by the fourth century military
service had become commercial ; the legions were
as purely an expression of money as the bureau-
cracy itself.
From the time of the Servian constitution down-
ward, the change in the army had kept pace with the
acceleration of movement which caused the economic
competition that centralized the State. Rome owed
her triumphs over Hannibal and Pyrrhus to the val-
our of her infantry, rather than to the genius of her
generals ; but from Marius the census ceased to be
the basis of recruitment, and the rich refused to serve
in the ranks.
This was equivalent in itself to a social revolution ;
for, from the moment when the wealthy succeeded in
withdrawing themselves from service, and the poor
saw in it a trade, the citizen ceased to be a soldier,
and the soldier became a mercenary. From that
time the army could be used for “ all purposes, pro-
vided that they could count on their pay and their
booty .” 1
The administration of Augustus organized the per-
manent police, which replaced the mercenaries of the
1 V Organisation Mthtaire chez Us Remains^ Marquardt, 143.
46
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP*
civil wars, and this machine was the greatest triumph
and the crowning glory of capital Dio Cassius has
described how the last vestige of an Italian army
passed away Up to the time of Severus it had been
customary to recruit the Pisetorians either from Italy
itself, from Spain, Macedonia, or other neighbouring
countries, whose population had some affinity with
that of Latium. Severus, after the treachery of the
guard to Pertmax, disbanded it, and reorganized a
corps selected from the bravest soldiers of the
legions These men were a horde of barbarians, re-
pulsive to Italians m their habits, and terrible to look
upon 1 Thus a body of wage-earners, drawn from the
ends of the earth, was made cohesive by money For
more than four hundred years this corps of hirelings
crushed revolt within the Empire, and regulated the
injection of fresh blood from without, with perfect
promptitude and precision ; nor did it fail in its func-
tions while the money which vitalized it lasted.
But a time came when the suction of the usurers so
wasted the life of the community that the stream of
bullion ceased to flow fiom the capital to the frontiers ;
then, as the sustaining force failed, the line of troops
along the Danube and the Rhine was drawn out until
it broke, and the barbarians poured in unchecked.
The so-called invasions were not conquests, for
they were not necessarily hostile ; they were only the
logical conclusion of a process which had been going
on since Trajan. When the power to control the
German emigration decayed, it flowed freely into the
provinces.
By the year 400 disintegration was far advanced ;
1 Dio Cassius, Jxxiv, 2.
I.
THE ROMANS
47
the Empire was crumbling, not because it was corrupt
or degenerate, but because the most martial and en-
ergetic race the world had ever seen had been so
thoroughly exterminated by men of the economic
type of mind, that petty bands of sorry adventurers
might rove whither they would, on what had once
been Roman soil, without meeting an enemy capable
of facing them, save other adventurers like themselves.
Goths, not Romans, defeated Attila at Chalons.
The Vandals, who, in the course of twenty years,
wandered from the Elbe to the Atlas, were not a
nation, not an army, not even a tribe, but a motley
horde of northern barbarians, ruined provincials, and
escaped slaves — a rabble whom Caesar’s legions would
have scattered like chaff, had they been as many as
the sands of the shore ; and yet when Genseric routed
Boniface and sacked Carthage, in 439, he led barely
fifty thousand fighting men.
CHAPTER II
THE MIDDLE AGE
Probably the appreciation of the Roman monetary
standard culminated during the invasion of the Huns
toward the middle of the fifth century. In the reign
of Valentiman III. gold sold for eighteen times its
weight of silver, and Valentinian’s final catastrophe
was the murder of Aetius in 454, with whose life the
last spark of vitality at the heart of Roman centraliz-
ation died. The rise of Ricimer and the accession of
Odoacer, mark the successive steps by which Italy
receded into barbarism, and, in the time of Theoderic
the Ostrogoth, she had become a primitive, decen-
tralized community, whose poverty and sluggishness
protected her from African and Asiatic competition.
The Ostrogoths subdued Italy in 493, and by that
date the barbarians had overrun the whole civilized
world west of the Adriatic, causing the demand for
money to sustain a consolidated society to cease, the
volume of trade to shrink, the market for eastern
wares to contract, and gold to accumulate at the centre
of exchanges. As gold accumulated, its value fell,
and during the first years of the sixth century it
stood at a ratio to silver of less than fifteen to one,
a decline of eighteen per cent. 1 As prices correspond-
1 Monnaies Byzantines, Sabatier, 1. 50.
48
CHAP. II.
THE MIDDLE AGE
49
ingly rose, the pressure on the peasantry relaxed, pros
perityat Constantinople returned, and the collapse of
the Western Empire may have prolonged the life of
the European population of the Eastern for above one
hundred and fifty years. The city which Constantine
planted in 324 on the shore of the Bosphorus, was in
reality a horde of Roman capitalists washed to the con-
fines of Asia by the current of foreign exchanges ; and
these emigrants carried with them, to a land of mixed
Greek and barbarian blood, their language and their
customs. For many years these monied potentates
ruled their new country absolutely. All that legisla-
tion could do for them was done. They even annexed
rations to their estates, to be supplied at the public
cost, to help their children maintain their palaces.
As long as prices fell, nothing availed ; the aristocracy
grew poorer day by day. Their property lay gen-
erally m land, and the same stringency which wasted
Italy and Gaul operated, though perhaps less acutely,
upon the Danubian peasantry also. By the middle of
the fifth century the country was exhausted and at
the mercy of the Huns.
Wealth is the weapon of a monied society ; for,
though itself lacking the martial instinct, it can, with
money, hire soldiers to defend it. But to raise a
revenue from the people, they must retain a certain
surplus of income after providing for subsistence,
otherwise the government must trench on the supply
of daily food, and exhaustion must supervene. Finlay
has explained that chronic exhaustion was the normal
condition of Byzantium under the Romans.
“The whole surplus profits of society were annually
drawn into the coffers of the State, leaving the inhab-
E
50
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
itants only a bare sufficiency for perpetuating the
race of tax-payers. History, indeed, shows that the
agricultural classes, fiom the labourer to the land-
lord, were unable to retain possession of the savings
required to replace that depreciation which time is
constantly producing in all vested capital, and that
their numbers gradually diminished.” 1
Under Theodosius II , when gold reached its maxi-
mum, complete piostration prevailed. The Huns
marched whither they would, and one swarm “ of bar-
barians followed another, as long as anything was
left to plunder ” The government could no longer
keep armies in the field A single example will
show how low the community had fallen. In 446,
Attila demanded of Theodosius six thousand pounds
of gold as a condition of peace, and certainly six thou-
sand pounds oi gold, equalling perhaps $1,370,000,
was a small sum, even when measured by the stand-
ard of private wealth. The end of the third century
was not a prosperous period in Italy, and yet before
his election as emperor in 275, the fortune of Tac-
itus reached 280,000,000 sesterces, or upwards of
$11,000, 000. 2 Nevertheless Theodosius was unable
to wring this inconsiderable indemnity from the
people, and he had to levy a private assessment on
the senators, who were themselves so poor that to
pay they sold at auction the jewels of their wives and
the furniture of their houses.
Almost immediately after the collapse of the West-
ern Empire the tide turned. With the fall in the
price of gold the peasantry revived and the Greek
1 History of the Byzantine Empire, Finlay, 9.
* Vopiscus, Tacitus, 10.
n
THE MIDDLE AGE
51
provinces flourished. In the reign of Justinian, Bel-
lsarius and Narses marched from end to end of Africa
and Europe, and Anastasius rolled in wealth
Anastasius, the contemporary of Theoderic, acceded
to the throne in 491. He not only built the famous
long wall from the Propontis to the Euxme, and left
behind him a treasure of three hundred and twenty
thousand pounds of gold, but he remitted to his sub-
jects the most oppressive of their taxes, and the reign
of Justinian, who succeeded him at an inteival of only
ten years, must always rank as the prime of the By-
zantine civilization. The observation is not new, it
has been made by all students of Byzantine history.
“The increased prosperity . . . infused into society
soon displayed its effects , and the brilliant exploits
of the reign of Justinian must be traced back to the
reinvigoration of the body politic of the Roman Em-
pire by Anastasius ” 1
Justinian inherited the throne from his uncle Jus-
tin, a Dardanian peasant, who could neither read nor
write. But the barbarian shepherd was a thorough
soldier, and the army he left behind him was probably
not inferior to the legions of Titus 01 Trajan. At
all events, had Justinian’s funds sufficed, there seems
reason to suppose he might have restored the bound-
aries of the Empire His difficulty lay not in lack of
physical force, but in dearth of opulent enemies ; in
the sixth century conquest had ceased to be profitable.
The territory open to invasion had been harried for
generations, and hardly a country was to be found
rich enough to repay the cost of a campaign by mer-
cenaries. Therefore, the more the emperor extended
Greece unde ? the Romans, George Finlay, 214.
52
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
his dominions, the moie they languished , and finally
to provide for wars, barbarian subsidies, and building,
Justinian had to resort to over-taxation With re-
newed want came renewed decay, and perhaps the
completion of Saint Sophia, in 558, may be taken as
the point whence the race which conceived this mas-
terpiece hastened to its extinction
In the seventh century Asiatic competition devoured
the Europeans in the Levant, as three hundred years
before it had devoured the husbandmen of Italy ; and
this was a disease which isolation alone could cure
But isolation of the centre of exchanges was impos-
sible, for the vital principle of an economic age is
competition, and, when the relief afforded by the col-
lapse of Rome had been exhausted, competition did
its work with relentless rapidity. Under Heraclius
(610-640) the population sank fast, and by 717 the
western blood had run so low that an Asiatic dyn-
asty reigned supreme. Everywhere Greeks and
Romans vanished before Armenians and Slavs, and
for years previous to the accession of Leo the Isau-
rian the great waste tracts where they once lived were
systematically repeopled by a more enduring race.
The colonists of Justinian II. furnished him an auxil-
iary army. At Justinian's death in 711 the revolution
had been completed ; the population had been reno-
vated, and Constantinople had become an Asiatic city. 1
The new aristocracy was Armenian, as strong an
economic type as ever existed in western Asia ; while
the Slavic peasantry which underlay them were among
the most enduring of mankind. There competition
ended, for it could go no further; and, apparently, from
1 Byzantine Empire, Finlay, 256.
tr. THE MIDDLE AGE S3
the accession of Leo in 717, to the rise of Florence
and Venice, three hundred and fifty years later, Byzan-
tine society, in fixity, almost resembled the Chinese.
Such movement as occurred, like Iconoclasm, came
from the friction of the migrating races with the old
population. As Texier has observed of architecture:
“From the time of Justinian until the end of the
Empire we cannot remark a single change m the
modes of construction.” 1
Only long after, when the money which sustained
it was diverted toward Italy during the crusades,
did the social fabric crumble ; and Gibbon has de-
clared that the third quarter of the tenth century
“forms the most splendid period of the Byzantine
annals.” 2
The later Byzantine was an economic civilization,
without aspiration or imagination, and perhaps the
most vivid description which has survived of that
ostentatious, sordid, cowardly, and stagnant race, is
the little sketch o £ the Jew, Benjamin of Tudela,
who travelled to the Levant in 1173.
Benjamin called the inhabitants of Constantinople
Greeks, because of their language, and he described
the city as a vast commercial metropolis, “common
to all the world, without distinction of country or re-
ligion ” Merchants from the East and West flocked
thither — from Babylon, Mesopotamia, Media, and
Persia, as well as from Egypt, Hungary, Russia,
Lombardy, and Spain. The rabbi thought the peo-
ple well educated and social, liking to eat and drink,
“ every man under his vine and under his fig tree,”
They loved gold and jewels, pompous display, and
1 Byzantine Architecture , Texier, 24. 2 Decline and Fall \ ch, lit
54
CIVILIZATION 1 VXD DECAY
CH\P.
gorgeous ceremonial , and the Jew has dwelt with
delight on the palace, with its columns of gold and
silver, and the wonderful ciown so studded with
gems that it lighted the night without a lamp. The
Greeks also roused his enthusiasm for the splendour
of their clothes and of their horses’ trappings, for
when they went abroad they resembled princes ; but
on the other hand, he remarked with a certain scorn,
that they were utterly cowardly, and, like women, had
to hire men to protect them
“ The Greeks who inhabit the country are extremely rich
and possess great wealth of gold and precious stones. They
dress in garments of silk, ornamented by gold and other
valuable materials . . . Nothing upon earth equals their
wealth.”
‘‘The Cheeks hire soldier of all nations whom they call
barbarians, for the purpose of carrying on . . . wars with
. . . the lurks ” “They have no martial spirit themselves
and like women are unfit for war.” 1
The movement of races in the Eastern Empire
proceeded with automatic regularity. The cheaper
organism exterminated the more costly, because
energy operated through money strongly enough to
cause free economic competition ; nor is the evi-
dence upon which this conclusion rests to be drawn
from books alone. Coinage and architecture, sculp-
ture and painting, tell the tale with equal precision.
When, in the fourth century, wealth, ebbing on the
Tiber, floated to the Bosphorus the core of the Latin
aristocracy, it carried with it also the Latin coinage.
For several generations this coinage underwent little
1 Itine) ary of Rabbi Benjamin of 7 'udda, trails from the Hebrew
by Asher, 54.
II. THE MIDDLE AGE 55
apparent alteration, but after the final division of the
Empire, in 395, between the sons of Theodosius, a
subtle change began in the composition of the ruling
class , a change reflected from generation to genera-
tion in the issues of their mints Sabatier has de-
scribed the transformation wrought in eight hundred
years with the minuteness of an antiquary
If a set of Byzantine coins are arranged in chrono-
logical order, those of Anastasius, about 500, show at
a glance an influence which is not Latin. Strange
devices have appeared on the reverse, together with
Greek letters A century later, when the great
decline was in progress under Heraclius, the type
had become barbarous, and the prevalence of Greek
inscriptions proves the steady exhaustion of the
Roman blood. Another fifty years, and by 690,
under Justinian II., the permanent and conventional
phase had been developed. Religious emblems were
used ; the head of Christ was struck on the golden
sou, and fixity of form presaged the Asiatic domina-
tion. The official costumes, the poi traits of the
emperors, certain consecrated inscriptions, all were
changeless, and in 717, an Armenian dynasty as-
cended the throne m the person of Leo the Isaurian. 1
This motionless period lasted for full three hundred
and fifty years, as long as the exchanges of the world
centred at Byzantium, and the monied race who dwelt
there sucked copious nutriment from the pool of
wealth in which it lay But even before the crusades
the tide of trade began to flow to the south, and
quitting Constantinople passed directly from Bagdad
to the cities of Italy. Then the sustenance of the
1 Monnaies Byzantines , i, 26.
56
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
money-changers gradually failed. From the reign of
Michael VI. effigies of the saints were engraved
upon the com, and after the revolution led by Alex-
ius Comnenus, in 1081, the execution degenerated
and debasement began This revolution marked the
beginning of the end. Immediately preceding the
crusades, and attended by sharp distress, it was prob-
ably engendered by an alteration in the drift of for-
eign exchanges Certainly the currency contracted
sharply, and the gold money soon became so bad
that Alexius had to stipulate to pay his debts in the
byzants of his predecessor Michael 1 For the next
hundred years, as the Italian cities rose, the Empire
languished, and with the thirteenth century, when
Venice established its permanent silver standard by
coining the “grosso,” Constantinople crumbled into
ruin.
In architecture the same phenomena appear, only
differently clothed. Though the Germans, who
swarmed across the Danube, often surged against
the walls of Constantinople, they never became the
ruling class of the community, because they were of
the imaginative type. Money retained its suprem-
acy, and while it did so energy expressed itself
through the economic mind. Though Justinian was
of barbarian blood, the nephew of a barbarian shep-
herd, the aristocracy about him, which formed the
core of society, was neither imaginative nor devo-
tional. Hardly Christian, it tended toward pagan-
ism or scepticism. The artists were of the subject
caste, and they earned their living by gratifying the
tastes of the nobles ; but the nobles loved magnifi*
1 See treaty with Bohemund* Anna Comnena, ml 7.
II.
THE MIDDLE AGE
57
cence and gorgeous functions , hence all Byzantine
architecture favoured display, and nowhere more so
than in Saint Sophia. “ Art delighted in represent-
ing Christ in all the splendour of power. . . To
glorify him the more all the magnificence of the
imperial court was introduced into heaven . . .
Christ no longer appeared under the benevolent
aspect of the good shepherd, but in the superb guise
of an oriental monarch : he is seated on a throne
glittering with gold and precious stones .” 1 Here
then lay the impassable gulf between Byzantium and
Pans ; while Byzantium remained economic and
materialistic, Paris passed into the glory of an imagi-
native age.
The Germans who overran the Roman territory
were of the same race as the Greeks, the Latins, or
the Gauls, but in a different stage of development.
They tilled farms and built villages and perhaps
fortresses, but they were not consolidated, and had
neither nations nor federations. They were substan-
tially in the condition in which the common family
had been, when it divided many centuries before, and
their minds differed radically from the minds of the
inhabitants of the countries beyond the Danube and
the Rhine. They were infinitely more imaginative,
and, as the flood of emigration poured down from
the north, the imagination came more and more to
prevail.
Although the lowest of existing savages are rela-
tively advanced, they suggest that the strongest
passion of primeval man must have been fear; and
fear, not so much of living things, as of nature,
1 V Art Byzantin, Bayet, 16, 17.
S 8
CIVILIZATION ANT) DFf'AV
fHAP
which seemed to him resolutely hostile* Against
wild beasts, or savages like himself, he might prevail
by cunning or by strength , but against ch ought and
famine, pestilence and earthquake, he was helpless,
and he regarded these scourges as malevolent beings,
made like himself, only moie formidable His first
and most pressing task was to mollify them, and
above the warrior class rose the sacred caste, whose
function was to mediate between the visible and the
invisible world
Originally these intercessors appear to have been
sorcerers, rather than priests, for spirits were believed
to be hostile to man , and perhaps the first concep-
tion of a god may have been reached through the
victory of a clan of sorcerers in fight As Statius
said eighteen h limited years ago, “Primus in orbe
decs fecit timer.” 1 Probably the early wizards won
their power by the discovery of natural seciets,
which, though they could be transmitted to their
descendants, might also be discovered by strangers.
The later discoverers would become rival medicine
men, and battle would be the only test by which the
orthodoxy of the competitors could be determined*
The victors would almost certainly .stigmatize the
beings the vanquished served, as devils who tor-
mented men There is an example of this process
in the eighteenth chapter of r Kings : —
“And Elijah * . . said, How long halt ye between
two opinions ? if the Lord be God, follow him : but
if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered
him not a word.”
Then Elijah proposed that each side should dress
1 Tkib> % hi. 66 1 .
II.
THE MIDDLE AGE
59
a bullock, and lay it on wood, and call upon their
spirit ; and the one who sent down fire should be
God, And all the people answered that it was well
spoken. And Jezebel’s prophets took their bullock
and dressed it, and called on “Baal from morning
even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us ! ” But
nothing came of it.
Then Elijah mocked them, “and said, Cry aloud:
. . . either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is
in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must
be awaked.”
And they cried aloud, and cut themselves with
knives till “blood gushed out upon them. And . . .
there was neither voice, nor any to answer.” Then
Elijah built his altar, and cut up his bullock and laid
him on wood, and poured twelve barrels of water
over the whole, and filled a trench with water.
And “the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the
burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and
the dust, and licked up the water that was in the
trench
“ And when all the people saw it, they fell on their
faces : and they said, The Lord, he is the God.
“And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of
Baal ; let not one of them escape. And they took
them : and Elijah brought them down to the brook
Kishon, and slew them there.”
The Germans of the fourth century were a very
simple race, who comprehended little of natural laws,
and who therefore referred phenomena they did not
understand to supernatural intervention This inter-
vention could only be controlled by priests, and thus
the invasions caused a rapid rise in the influence
6o
Cl VI LIZ A 1 IOV AND DECAY
CHAP,
of the sacred class The power of every ecclesiastical
organization has always rested on the miracle, and
the clergy have always proved their divine commis-
sion as did Elijah This was eminently the case with
the mediaeval Church. At the outset Christianity
was socialistic, and its spread among the poor was
apparently caused by the piessure of competition ;
for the sect only became of enough importance to be
persecuted under Nero, contemporaneously with the
first signs of distress which appeared through the de-
basement of the denaiius. But socialism was only a
passing phase, and disappeared as the money value
of the miracle rose, and brought wealth to the
Church. Under the Emperor Decius, about 250, the
magistrates thought the Chiistians opulent enough
to use gold and silver vessels in their service, and, by
the fourth century, the supernatural so possessed the
popular mind, that Constantine not only allowed him-
self to be converted by a miracle, but used enchant-
ment as an engine of war.
In one of his marches, he encouraged the belief
that he saw a luminous cross in the sky, with the
words “By this conquer.” The next night Christ
appeared to him, and directed him to construct a
standard bearing the same design, and, armed with
this, to advance with confidence against Maxentius
The legend, preserved by Eusebius, grew up after
the event ; but, for that very reason, it reflects the
feeling of the age. The imagination of his men had
grown so vivid that, whether he believed or not, Con-
stantine found it expedient to use the Labarum as a
charm to ensure victory. The standard supported a
cross and a mystic monogram ; the army believed its
II. THE MIDDLE AGE 6 1
guards to be invulnerable, and m his last and most
critical campaign against Licinius, the sight of the
talisman not only excited his own troops to enthusi-
asm, but spiead dismay through the enemy
The action of the Milvian Bridge, fought in 312,
by which Constantine established himself at Rome,
was probably the point whence natuie began to dis-
criminate decisively against the monied type in
Western Europe Capital had already abandoned
Italy ; Christianity was soon after officially recog-
nized, and during the next century the priest began
to rank with the soldier as a force m war.
Meanwhile, as the population sank into exhaustion,
it yielded less and less revenue, the police deterio-
rated, and the guards became unable to protect the
frontier. In 376, the Goths, bard pressed by the
Huns, came to the Danube and implored to be taken
as subjects by the emperor After mature delibera-
tion, the Council of Valens granted the prayer, and
some five hundred thousand Germans were cantoned
in Moesia. The intention of the government was to
scatter this multitude through the provinces as coloni ,
or to draft them into the legions; but the detachment
detailed to handle them was too feeble, the Goths
mutinied, cut the guard to pieces, and having ravaged
Thrace for two years, defeated and killed Valens at
Hadrianople. In another generation the disorganiza-
tion of the Roman army had become complete, and
Alaric gave it its deathblow in his campaign of 410.
Alaric was not a Gothic king, but a barbarian de-
serter, who, in 392, was in the service of Theodosius
Subsequently, he sometimes held imperial commands,
and sometimes led bands of marauders on his own
62
CI\ I LI /AT ION AND DECAY
CHAP.
account, but was always in difficulty about his pay.
Finally, m the revolution in which Stihcho was mur*
derecl, a corps of auxiliaries mutinied and chose him
their general Alleging that his arrears were unpaid,
Alanc accepted the command, and with this army
sacked Rome
During the campaign the attitude of the Christians
was more interesting than the strategy of the soldiers.
Alaric was a robber, leading mutineers, and yet the
orthodox historians did not condemn him. They did
not condemn him because the sacred class instinct-
ively loved the barbarians whom they could overawe,
whereas they could make little impression on the
materialistic intellect of the old centralized society.
Under the Empire the priests, like all other individ-
uals, had to obey the power which paid the police;
and as long as a revenue could be drawn from the
provinces, the Christian hierarchy were subordinate
to the monied bureaucracy who had the means to
coerce them.
“ It was long since established, as a fundamental maxim
of the Roman constitution, that every tank of citizens were
alike subject to the laws, and that the care of religion was
the right as well as duty of the civil magistrate.” 1
Their conversion made little change in the attitude
of the emperors, and Constantine and his successors
continued to exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the
hierarchy The sixteenth book of the Theodosian
Code sufficiently sets forth the plenitude of their
authority. In theory, bishops were elected by the
clergy and the people, but in practice the emperor
1 Bedim and Fall* ch* xx*
II. THE MIDDLE AGE 63
could control the patronage if it were valuable ; and
whether bishops were elected or appointed, as long
as they were created and paid by laymen, they were
dependent. The priesthood could only become auto-
cratic when fear of the miracle exempted them from
arrest ; and toward the middle of the fifth century
this point was approaching, as appears by*the effect
of the embassy of Leo the Great to Attila
In 452 the Huns had crossed the Alps and had
sacked Aquileia. The Roman army was demoralized;
Aetius could not make head against the barbarians
in the field , while Valentinian was so panic-stricken
that he abandoned Ravenna, which was thought im-
pregnable, and retreated to the capital, which was
indefensible At Rome, finding himself helpless in
an open city, the emperor conceived the idea of
invoking the power of the supernatural He pro-
posed to Leo to visit Attila and persuade him to
spare the town. The pope consented without hesita-
tion, and with perfect intrepidity caused himself to
be carried to the Hun’s tent, where he met with
respect not unalloyed by fear. The legend probably
reflects pretty accurately the feeling of the time. As
the bishop stood before the kmg, Peter and Paul
appeared on either side, menacing Attila with flaming
swords, and though this particular form of apparition
may be doubted, Attila seems beyond question to
have been oppressed by a belief that he would not
long survive the capture of Rome. He therefore
readily agreed to accept a ransom and evacuate Italy.
From the scientific standpoint the saint and the
sorcerer are akin ; for though the saint uses the
supernatural for man’s benefit, and the sorcerer for
64
CIVILIZATION’ AND DECAY
CHAP.
his hurt, both deal in magic The mediaeval saint
was a powerful necromancer He healed the sick,
cast out devils, raised the dead, foretold the future,
put out fires, found stolen property, brought rain,
saved from shipwreck, routed the enemy, cured head-
ache, was sovereign in child-birth, and, indeed, could
do almost anything that was asked of him, whether he
were alive or dead. This power was believed to lie in
some occult property of the flesh, which passed by
contact. The woman in the Bible said, “ If I may
touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” Moreover,
this fluid was a substance whose passage could be felt,
for “Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that vir-
tue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press,
and said, Who touched my clothes ? ” 1
Anything which came in contact with the saint was
likely to have been impregnated with this magical
quality, and thus became a charm, or relic, whose value
depended primarily on the power of the man himself,
and secondly, on the thoroughness with which the
material had been charged.
The tomb, which held the whole body, naturally
stood highest ; then parts of the body, according to
their importance — a head, an arm, a leg, down to
hairs of the beard. Then came hats, boots, girdles,
cups, anything indeed which had been used. The
very ground on which a great miracle-worker bad
stood might have high value.
The Holy Grail, which had held Christ’s blood,
would cure wounds, raise the dead, and fill itself with
choice food, at the command of the owner. The
. eucharist, though not properly a relic, and which only
1 Mark v. 2 8* 30.
XX.
THE MIDDLE AGE
65
became God through an incantation, would, in expert
hands, stop fires, cure disease, cast out devils, ex-
pound philosophy, and detect perjury by choking the
liar.
Every prize in life was to be obtained by this kind
of magic. When the kings of France made war, they
carried with them the enchanted banner of Saint
Denis, and Froissart has told how even in the reign
of Charles VI. it decided the battle of Roosebeke 1
Disease was treated altogether by miracle, and the
Church found the business so profitable that she ana-
thematized experimental practitioners In the thir-
teenth century Saint Thomas of Canterbury and Saint
James of Compostello were among the most renowned
of healers, and their shrines blazed with the gifts of
the greatest and richest persons of Europe. When
Philip Augustus lay very ill, Louis the Pious obtained
leave to visit the tomb of Saint Thomas, then in the
height of the fashion, and left as part of his fee the
famous regal of France, a jewel so magnificent that
three centuries and a half later Henry VIII seized it
and set it in a thumb ring. Beside this wonderful gem,
at the pillage of the Reformation, “the king’s receiver
confessed that the gold and silver and precious stones
and sacred vestments taken away . . filled six-and-
twenty carts /’ 2 The old books of travel are filled
with accounts of this marvellous shrine
“ But the magnificence of the tomb of Saint Thomas the
Martyr, Archbishop of Canterbury, is that which surpasses all
belief. This, notwithstanding its great size, is entirely cov-
ered with plates of pure gold , but the gold is scarcely visible
1 Chronicles u 124.
2 Anglican Schism, Sander, trails, by Lewis, 143.
66
CIVILIZATION* AND I»KC'A\
CIHP
from the variety of piecious stones with which it is studded,
such as sapphires, diamonds, rubies, balas-rubies, and emeralds
. and agates, jaspers and cornelians set in relievo, some
of the cameos being of such a size, that I do not dare to men-
tion it , but ever) thing is left far behind by a ruby, not larger
than a man’s thumb-nail, which is set to the right of the altai
. . . 'They say that it was the gift of a king of France /’ 1
But beside these shrines of world-wide reputation,
no hamlet was too remote to possess its local fetish,
which worked at cheap lates for the peasantry. A
curious list of these was sent to the Government
by two of CiomwelPs visitors in the reign of
Henry VIII.
The nuns of Saint Mary, at Derby, had part of
the shirt of Samt Thomas, reverenced by pregnant
women ; so was the girdle of Saint Francis at Grace
Dieu. At Repton, a pilgrimage was made to Saint
Guthlac and his bell, which was put on the head for
headache. The wimple of Saint Audrede was used
for sore breasts, and the rod of Aaron for children
with worms. At Bury Saint Edmund’s, the shrine of
Saint Botulph was carried in procession when rain
was needed, “ and Kentish men . . , carry thence
. . , wax candles, which they light at the end of
the field while the wheat is sown, and hope from
this that neither tares nor other weeds will grow
in the wheat that year .” 2 Most curious of _ all, per-
haps, at Pontefract, Thomas, Duke of Lancaster’s
belt and hat were venerated. They were believed to
aid women in child-birth, and also to cure headache.
1 A Relation, or rather * a True Atcount of the Island of England^
Camden Soc. 30
2 CaL x. No 364. References to the calendar of State papers edited
by Messrs. Brewer ami Goirdnev will be made by tins word only*
II.
THE MIDDLE AGE
67
Saint Thomas Aquinas, a great venerator of the
eucharist, used it to help him in his lectures. When
treating of the dogma of the Supper at the Univer
sity of Paris, many questions were asked him which
he never answered without meditating at the foot of
the altar. One day, when preparing an answer to a
very difficult question, he placed it on the altar, and
cried, ** Lord, who really and veritably dwells in the
Holy Sacrament, hear my prayer. If what I have
written upon your divine eucharist be true, let it be
given me to teach and demonstrate it. If I am
deceived, stop me from proposing doctrines contrary
to the truth of your divine Sacrament.” Forthwith
the Lord appeared upon the altar, and said to him,
“ You have written well upon the Sacrament of My
body, and you have answered the question which
has been proposed to you as well as human intel-
ligence can fathom these mysteries ” 1
Primitive people argue directly from themselves to
their divinities, and throughout the Middle Ages men
believed that envy, jealousy, and vanity were as
rampant in heaven as on earth, and behaved accord-
ingly, The root of the monastic movement was the
hope of obtaining advantages by adulation.
“A certain clerk, who had more confidence in the Mother
than the Son, continually repeated the Ave Maria as his
only prayer. One day, while so engaged, Christ appeared
to him and said, *My mother thanks you very much for
your salutations, . . . iamen et me salutare memento * ” 2
1 Hisioire du Sacrament de V Eucharistic % Corblet, i. 474. See
also on this subject Ccesarn Dialogus Miraculorum ; De Corpon
Christi,
2 Hist* Lit de la France , xxii. 1 19
68
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
To insure perpetual intercession it was necessary
that the song of piaise and the smoke of incense
should be perpetual, and therefoie monks and nuns
worked day and night at their calling As a
twelfth-centmy bishop of Metz observed, when wak-
ened one freezing morning by the hell of Saint
Peter of Bouillon tolling for matins : “ Neither the
drowsiness of the night nor the bitterness of a
glacial winter [kept them] fiom praising the Creator
of the woild .” 1
Bequests to convents were in the nature of policies
of insurance in favour of the grantor and his heirs,
not only against punishment in the next world, but
against accident in this. On this point doubt is
impossible, for the belief of the donor is set forth in
numberless chatters Cedric de Guillac, in a deed to
la Grande-Sauve, said that he gave because “as water
extinguishes file, so gifts extinguish sin .” 2 And an
anecdote preserved by Dugdale, shows how valuable
an investment against accident a convent was thought
to be as late as the thiitecnth century.
When Ralph, Earl of Chester, the founder of the
monastery of Dieulacres, was returning by sea from
the Holy Land, he was overtaken one night by a
sudden tempest. “How long is it till midnight
he asked of the sailors. They answered, “About two
hours.” He said to them, “Work on till midnight,
and I trust in God that you may have help, and that
the storm will cease ” When it was near midnight
the captain said to the earl, “My lord, commend
yourself to God, for the tempest increases; we are
1 Lts Mourn d* Occident, M on tal ember t, vi. 34,
2 Hi stair e de la G? mute- Same, h. 13.
II. THE MIDDLE AGE 69
worn out, and are in mortal peril ” Then Earl Ralph
came out of his cabin, and began to help with the
ropes, and the lest of the ship’s tackle; nor was it
long before the storm subsided
The next day, as they were sailing over a tranquil
sea, the captain said to the earl, “ My lord, tell us, if
you please, why you wished us to work till the mid-
dle of the night, and then you worked harder than all
the rest ” To which he replied, “ Because at mid-
night my monks, and others, whom my ancestors and
I have endowed in divers places, rise and sing divine
service, and then I have faith in their prayers, and I
believe that God, because of their prayers and inter-
cessions, gave me more fortitude than I had before,
and made the storm cease as I predicted .” 1
Philip Augustus, when caught in a gale in the
Straits of Messina, showed equal confidence in the
matins of Clairvaux, and was also rewarded for his
faith by good weather towards morning.
The power of the imagination, when stimulated by
the mystery which, m an age of decentralization,
shrouds the operations of nature, can be measured by
its effect in creating an autocratic class of miracle-
workers. Between the sixth and the thirteenth cen-
turies, about one-third of the soil of Europe passed
into the hands of religious corporations, while the
bulk of the highest talent of the age sought its out-
let through monastic life.
The force operated on all; for, beside religious
ecstasy, ambition and fear were at work, and led to
results inconceivable when centralization has begot
materialism. Saint Bernard’s position was more con-
1 MonashcoHy v, 628, Ed 1S46
70
CIVIL!/ vriov AND DECAY
CHAP,
spicuous and splendid than that of any monarch of his
generation, and the agony of terror which assailed
the warriors was usually proportionate to the free-
dom with which they had violated ecclesiastical com-
mands. They fled to the cloister for protection from
the fiend, and took their wealth with them.
Gerard le Blanc was even more noted for his
cruelty than for his courage. He was returning to
his castle one day, after having committed a murder,
when he saw the demon whom be served appear to
claim him. Seized with horror, he galloped to where
six penitents had just founded the convent of Afflig-
hem, and supplicated them to receive him. The
news spread, and the whole province gave thanks to
God that a monster of cruelty should have been so
converted.
A few days after, his example was followed by
another knight, equally a murderer, who had visited
the recluses, and, touched by their piety and auster-
ity, resolved to renounce his patrimony and live a
penitent . 1
Had the German migrations been wars of exter-
mination, as they have sometimes been desciibed,
the imagination, among the new barbaric population,
might have been so stimulated that a pure theocracy
would have been developed between the time of Saint
Benedict and Saint Bernard. But the barbarians
were not animated by hate; on the contrary, they
readily amalgamated with the old population, amongst
whom the materialism of Rome lay like a rock in a ris-
ing tide, sometimes submerged, but never obliterated.
The obstacle which the true emotionalists never
1 Les Momez d' Occident % Montatembert, vi 10 1
II.
THE MIDDLE AGE
7 1
overcame was the inheritance of a secular clergy,
who, down to the eleventh century, were generally
married, and in the higher grades were rather barons
than prelates. In France the Archbishop of Rheims,
the Bishops of Beauvais, Noyon, Langres, and others,
were counts ; while in Germany the Archbishops of
Mayence, of Treves, and of Cologne were princes and
electors, standing on the same footing as the Dukes
of Saxony and Bavaria.
As feudal nobles these ecclesiastics were retainers
of the king, owed feudal service, led their vassals in
war, and some of the fiercest soldiers of the Middle
Ages were clerks Milo of Treves was a famous
eighth-century bishop. Charles Martel gave the arch-
bishopric of Rheims to a warrior named Milo, who
managed also to obtain the see of Treves This Milo
was the son of Basmus, the last incumbent of the
preferment. He was a fierce and irreligious soldier,
and was finally killed hunting; but during the forty
years in which he held his offices, Boniface, with all
the aid of the crown and the pope, was unable to pre-
vail against him, and in 752 Pope Zachary wrote advis-
ing that he should be left to the divine vengeance. 1
Such a system was incompatible with the suprem-
acy of a theocracy. The essence of a theocracy is
freedom from secular control, and this craving for
freedom was the dominant instinct of monasticism.
Saint Anselm, perhaps the most perfect specimen of
a monk, felt it in the marrow of his bones ; it was
the master passion of his life, and he insisted upon
it with all the fire of his nature : “ Nihil magis dili-
git Deus in hoc mundo quam libertatem ecclesiae
1 Sacerdotal Cehbacy , Lea, 129.
72
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
suae. Liberam vult esse Deus sponsam suam,
non ancillam ”
Yet only veiv slowly, as the Empire disintegrated,
did the theocratic idea take shape. As late as the
ninth centiuy the pope prostiated himself before Char-
lemagne, and, did homage as to a Roman emperor, 1
Samt Benedict founded Monte Ca&sino in 529, but
centuries elapsed before the Benedictine order rose to
power. The early convents weie isolated and feeble,
and much at the mercy of the laity, who invaded and
debauched them Abbots, like bishops, were often
soldiers, who lived within the walls with their wives
and children, their hawks, their hounds, and their
men-at-arms ; and it has been said that, in all France,
Corbie and Fleuiy alone kept always something of
their eaily discipline
Only in the eaily years of the most lmicl century of
the Middle Ages, when decentralization culminated,
and the imagination began to gain its fullest intensity,
did the peiiod of monastic consolidation open with the
foundation of Cluny. In 910 William of Aquitaine
drew a charter 2 which, so far as possible, provided for
the complete independence of his new corporation*
There was no episcopal visitation, and no interference
with the election of the abbot. The monks were put
directly under the protection of the pope, who was
made their sole superior. John XI. confirmed this
charter by his bull of 932, and authorized the affiliation
of all convents who wished to share in the reform, 3
1 A finales I ant menses. Per?,, i» 188.
2 Net net l Jes Chartes de VAbbaye de Cluny , Bruel, i. 124*
3 Bull* Clun ,, p 2, col. K, Also Manuel des Institutions F/an(mses t
Luchaire, 93, 95, where the authorities are collected.
II.
THE MIDDLE AGE
73
The growth of Cluny was marvellous; by the
twelfth century two thousand houses obeyed its rule,
and its wealth was so great, and its buildings so vast,
that m 1245 Innocent IV., the Emperor Baldwin, and
Saint Louis were all lodged together within its walls,
and with them all the attendant trains of prelates
and nobles with their servants
In the eleventh century no other force of equal
energy existed. The monks were the most opulent,
the ablest, and the best organized society in Europe,
and their effect upon mankind was proportioned to
their strength. They intuitively sought autocratic
power, and during the centuries when nature favoured
them, they passed from triumph to triumph. They
first seized upon the papacy and made it self-perpet-
uating; they then gave battle to the laity for the
possession of the secular hierarchy, which had been
under temporal control since the very foundation of
the Church.
About the year 1000 Rome was in chaos. The
Counts of Tusculum, who had often disposed of the
tiara, on the death of John XIX., bought it for Bene-
dict IX. Benedict was then a child of ten, but he
grew worse as he grew older, and finally he fell so
low that he was expelled by the people. He was
succeeded by Sylvester ; but, a few months after his
coronation, Benedict re-entered the city, and crowned
John XX with his own hands. Shortly after, he
assaulted the Vatican, and then three popes reigned
together in Rome. In this crisis Gregory VI. tried
to restore order by buying the papacy for himself,
but the transaction only added a fourth pope to the
three already consecrated, and two years later he was
74
CIVILIZATION AND DEC-W
CHAR
set aside by the Emperor Henry, who appointed his
own chancellor in his place
It was a last triumph for the laity, but a triumph
easier to win than to sustain. When the soldier
created the high priest of Christendom, he did indeed
inspire such terror that no man in the great assembly
dared protest ; but in nine months Clement was dead,
his successor lived only twenty-four days, poisoned,
as it was rumoured, by the perfidious Italians , and
when Henry sought a third pope among his prelates,
he met with general timidity to accept the post.
Then the opportunity of the monks came : they
seized it, and with unerring instinct fixed themselves
upon the throne from which they have never been
expelled. According to the picturesque legend,
Bruno, Bishop of Toul, seduced by the flattery of
courtiers and the allurements of ambition, accepted
the tiara from the emperor, and set out upon his
journey to Italy with a splendid retinue, and with
his robe and crown. On his way he turned aside at
Cluny, where Hildebrand was prior. Hildebrand,
filled with the spirit of God, reproached him with
having seized upon the seat of the vicar of Christ by
force, and accepted the holy office from the sacrile-
gious hand of a layman. He exhorted Bruno to cast
away his pomp, and to cross the Alps humbly as a
pilgrim, assuring him that the priests and people of
Rome would recognize him as their bishop, and elect
him according to canonical forms. Then he would
taste the joys of a pure conscience, having entered
the fold of Christ as a shepherd and not as a robber.
Inspired by these words, Bruno dismissed his train,
and left the convent gate as a pilgrim. He walked
IX.
THE MIDDLE AGE
75
barefoot, and when after two months of pious medi-
tations he stood before Saint Peter’s, he spoke to the
people and told them it was their privilege to elect
the pope, and since he had come unwillingly he
would return again, were he not their choice.
He was answered with acclamations, and on Feb-
ruary 2, 1049, he was enthroned as Leo IX His
first act was to make Hildebrand his minister.
The legend tells of the triumph of Cluny as no
historical facts could do. Ten years later, m the
reign of Nicholas II., the theocracy made itself self-
perpetuating through the assumption of the election
of the pope by the college of cardinals, and in 1073
Hildebrand, the incarnation of monasticism, was
crowned under the name of Gregory VII.
With Hildebrand’s election, war began. The council
of Rome, held in 1075, decreed that holy orders should
not be recognized where investiture had been granted
by a layman, and that princes guilty of conferring
investiture should be excommunicated. The council
of the next year, which excommunicated the emperor,
also enunciated the famous propositions of Baromus
— the full expression of the theocratic idea: —
“ That the Roman pontiff* alone can be called universal.
“ That he alone can depose or reconcile bishops.
“ That his legate, though of inferior rank, takes prece-
dence of all bishops in council, and can pronounce sentence
of deposition against them.
“ That all princes should kiss the pope’s feet alone.
a That he may depose emperors.
;6
civiLizvnox v\n dkc-vv
CHAP.
“ That his judgments can be overruled by none, and he
alone can overrule the judgments of all
“ That he can be judged by no one
“That the Roman Chinch never has, and never can err,
as the Scriptures testify.
“ That by his precept and permission it is lawful for sub-
jects to accuse their princes.
“That he is able to absolve from their allegiance the
subjects of the wicked.” 1
The monks had won the papacy, but the emperor
still held his secular clergy, and, at the diet of
Worms, where he undertook to depose Hildebrand,
he was sustained by his prelates. Without a mo-
ment of hesitation the enchanter cast his spell, and it
is interesting to see, in the cuise which he launched
at the layman, how the head of mona&ticism had
become identified with the spiiit which he served.
The priest had grown to be a god on earth.
“So strong in this confidence, for the honour and de-
fence of your Church, on behalf of the omnipotent God, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, by your power and
authority, I forbid the government of the German and
Italian kingdoms, to King Henry, the son of the Emperor
Henry, who, with unheard-of airogance, has rebelled
against your Church. I absolve all Christians from the
oaths they have made, or may make to him, and I forbid
that any one should obey him as king .” 2
Henry marched on Italy, but in all European his-
tory there has been no drama more tremendous than
1 Annahs Ecdena$tid> Baronius, year 1076.
2 Migne, cxlvni, 790.
II.
THE MIDDLE AGE
77
the expiation of his sacrilege. To his soldiers the
world was a vast space, peopled by those fantastic
beings which are still seen on Gothic towers. These
demons obeyed the monk of Rome, and his army,
melting from the emperor under a nameless horror,
left him helpless.
Gregory lay like a magician in the fortress of Ca-
nossa ; but he had no need of carnal weapons, for
when the emperor reached the Alps he was almost
alone. Then his imagination also took fire, the panic
seized him, and he sued for mercy.
For three days long he stood barefoot in the snow
at the castle gate ; and when at last he was admitted,
half-naked and benumbed, he was paralyzed rather
by terror than by cold. Then the great miracle was
wrought, by which God was made to publicly judge
between them.
Hildebrand took the consecrated wafer and broke
it, saying to the suppliant, “ Man’s judgments are
fallible, God’s are infallible , if I am guilty of the
crimes you charge me with, let Him strike me dead
as I eat.” He ate, and gave what remained to
Henry; but though for him more than life was at
stake, he dared not taste the bread. From that hour
his fate was sealed. He underwent his penance and
received absolution ; and when he had escaped from
the terrible old man, he renewed the war. But the
spell was over him, the horror clung to him, even his
sons betrayed him, and at last his mind gave way
under the strain and he abdicated. In his own
words, to save his life he “sent to Mayence the
crown, the sceptre, the cross, the sword, the lance.”
On August 7, 1106, Henry died at Liege, an out-
78 CIV I LIZA i ION AND DECAY chap, n
cast anc! a mendicant, and for five long years his
body lay at the church door, an accursed thing which
no man dared to bury.
Such was the evolution of the mediaeval theocracy,
the result of that social disintegration which stimu-
lates the human imagination, and makes men cower
before the unknown. The force which caused the
rise of an independent priesthood was the equivalent
of magic, and it was the waxing of this force through
the dissolution of the Empire of the West which
made the schism which split Christendom in two.
The Latin Church divided from the Greek because it
was the reflection of the imaginative mind. While
the West grew emotional, Constantinople stayed the
centre of exchanges, the seat of the monied class;
and when Cluny captured Rome, the antagonism be-
tween these irreconcilable instincts precipitated a
rupture. The schism dated from 1054, five years
after the coronation of Leo. Nor is the theory new ;
it was explained by Gibbon long ago.
“ The rising majesty of Rome could no longer brook the
insolence of a rebel; and Michael Cerularius was excom-
municated in the heart of Constantinople by the pope’s
legates. , . .
<e From this thunderbolt we may date the consummation
of the schism. It was enlarged by each ambitious step of
the Roman pontiffs ; the emperors blushed and trembled at
the ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany;
and the people were scandalized by the temporal power and
military life of the Latin clergy.” 1
1 Decline and Fall , ch, lx.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST CRUSADE
Until the mechanical arts have advanced far
enough to cause the attack in war to predominate
over the defence, centralization cannot begin ; for
when a mud wall can stop an army, a police is impos-
sible. The superiority of the attack was the secret
of the power of the monied class who controlled
Rome, because with money a machine could be main-
tained which made individual resistance out of the
question, and revolt difficult. Titus had hardly more
trouble m reducing Jerusalem, and dispersing the
Jews, than a modern officer would have under simi-
lar circumstances
As the barbarians overran the Roman provinces,
and the arts declined, the conditions of life changed.
The defence gained steadily on the attack, and, after
some centuries, a town with a good garrison, solid
ramparts, and abundant provisions had nothing to
fear from the greatest king. Even the small, square
Norman tower was practically impregnable. As
Viollet-le-Duc has explained, these towers were mere
passive defences, formidable to a besieger only be-
cause no machinery existed for making a breach in
a wall The beleaguered nobles had only to watch
their own men, see to their doors, throw projectiles
79
8o
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
at the enemy if he approached too near, counter-mine
if mined, and they might defy a great army until their
food failed. Famine was the enemy most feared. 1
By the eleventh century these towers had sprung
up all over the West Even the convents and
churches could be defended, and every such strong-
hold was the seat of a count or baron, an abbot or
bishop, who was a sovereign because no one could
coerce him, and who therefore exercised all the rights
of sovereignty, made war, dispensed justice, and
coined money In France alone there were nearly
two hundred mints in the twelfth century.
Down to the close of the Merovingian dynasty the
gold standard had been maintained, and contraction
had steadily gone on , but, for reasons which are not
understood, under the second race, the purchasing
power of bullion tempoiarily declined, and this expan-
sion was probably one chief cause of the prosperity
of the reign of Charlemagne, Perhaps the relief was
due to the gradual restoration of silver to circulation,
for the coinage was then reformed, and the establish-
ment of the silver pound as the measure of value may
be considered as the basis of all the monetary sys-
tems of modern Europe
The interval of prosperity was, however, brief ; no
permanent addition was made to the stock of precious
metals, and prices continued to fall, as is demon-
strated by the rapid deterioration of the currency.
In this second period of relapse disintegration
reached its limit.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries the North-
men infested the coasts of France, and sailed up the
1 Dictionnaire de P At ikiiectw e, v. 50.
in. THE FIRST CRUSADE 8 1
rivers burning and ravaging, as far as Rouen and
Orleans. Even the convents of Saint Martin of
Tours and Saint Germain des Pres were sacked.
The Mediterranean swarmed with Saracenic corsairs,
who took Fraxinetum, near Toulon, seized the passes
of the Alps, and levied toll on travel into Italy The
cannibalistic Huns overran the Lower Danube, and
closed the road to Constantinople Western Europe
was cut off from the rest of the world Commerce
nearly ceased — the roads were so bad and danger-
ous, and the sea so full of pirates.
The ancient stock of scientific knowledge was
gradually forgotten, and the imagination had full
play Upon philosophy the effect was decisive;
Christianity sank to a plane where it appealed more
vividly to the minds of the surrounding pagans than
their own faiths, and conversion then went on rapidly
In 912 Rollo of Normandy was baptized, the Danes,
Norwegians, Poles, and Russians followed, and in
997 Saint Stephen ascended the throne of Hungary
and reopened to Latin Christians the way to the
Sepulchre.
Perhaps the destiny of modern Europe has hinged
upon the fact that the Christian sacred places lay
in Asia, and therefore the pilgrimage brought the
West into contact with the East But the pilgrim-
age was the effect of relic-worship, and relic-worship
the vital principle of monasticism. In these cen-
turies of extreme credulity monasticism had its
strongest growth. A faculty for scientific study was
abnormal, and experimental knowledge was ascribed
to sorcery. The monk Gerbert, who became pope
as Sylvester II., was probably the most remarkable
G
82
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
man of his generation Though poor and of humble
birth, he attracted so much attention that he was
sent to Spain, where he studied in the Moorish
schools at Barcelona and Cordova, and where he
learned the rudiments of mathematics and geography.
His contemporaries were so bewildered by his know-
ledge that they thought it due to magic, and told how
he had been seen flying home from Spain, borne on
the back of the demon he served, and loaded with
the books he had stolen from the wizard, his master.
Sylvester died in 1003, but long afterwards anatomy
was still condemned by the Church, and four sepa-
rate councils anathematized experimental medicine,
because it threatened to destroy the value of the
shrines. The ascendency of Cluny began with Saint
Hugh, who was chosen abbot in 1049, the year of
Leo’s election. The corporation then obtained con-
trol of Rome, and in another twenty-five years was
engaged in its desperate struggle with the remains
of the old secular police power. But though Hilde-
brand crushed Henry, the ancient materialism was
too deeply imbedded to be eradicated in a single gen-
eration, and meanwhile the imagination had been
brought to an uncontrollable intensity, A new and
fiercer excitement seethed among the people — a
vision of the conquest of talismans so powerful as to
make their owners sure of heaven and absolute on
earth.
The attraction of Palestine had been very early felt,
for in 333 a guide-book had been written, called the
Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem , which gave
the route through the valley of the Danube, together
with an excellent account of the Holy Land. In
Ill
THE FIRST CRUSADE
83
those days, before the barbaric inroads, the journey
was safe enough ; but afterwards communication
nearly ceased, and when Stephen was baptized m
997, the relics of Jerusalem had all the excitement
of novelty. Europe glowed with enthusiasm Syl-
vester proposed a crusade, and Hildebrand declared
he would rather risk his life for the holy places “than
rule the universe ”
Each year the throngs upon the road increased,
convents sprang up along the way to shelter the pil-
grims, the whole population succoured and venerated
them, and by the time Cluny had seized the triple
crown, they left in veritable armies Ingulf, secre-
tary to William the Conqueror, set out in 1064 with
a band seven thousand strong.
In that age of faith no such mighty stimulant could
inflame the human brain as a march to Jerusalem.
A crusade was no vulgar war for a vulgar prize, but
an alliance with the supernatural for the conquest of
talismans whose possession was tantamount to omnipo-
tence. Urban’s words at Clermont, when he first
preached the holy war, have lost their meaning now ;
but they burned like fire into the hearts of his hearers
then, for he promised them glory on earth and feli-
city in heaven, and he spoke in substance thus . No
longer do you attack a castle or a town, but you
undertake the conquest of the holy places. If you
triumph, the blessings of heaven and the kingdoms
of the East will be your share ; if you fall, you will
have the glory of dying where Christ died, and God
will not forget having seen you in His holy army. 1
Urban told them “that under their general Jesus
1 Annates Ecclesiastici, Baronius, year 1095.
8 4
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAR
Christ . . . they, the Christian, the invincible army,”
would march to certain victory. In the eleventh
century this language was no metaphor, for the Clu-
mac monk spoke as the mouthpiece of a god who
was there actually among them, offering the cross
he brought from the grave, and promising them
triumphs . not the common triumphs which may be
won by man’s unaided strength, but the transcendent
glory which belongs to beings of another world.
S® the crusaders rode out to fight, the originals
of the fairy knights, clad in impenetrable armour,
mounted on muaculous horses, armed with resistless
swords, and bearing charmed lives
Whole villages, even whole districts, were left
deserted ; land lost its value ; what could not be sold
was abandoned , and the peasant, loaded with his
poor possessions, started on foot with his wife and
children in quest of the Sepulchre, so ignorant of the
way that he mistook each town upon the road for
Zion. Whether he would or no, the noble had to
lead his vassals or be forsaken, and riding at their
head with his hawks and hounds, he journeyed to-
wards that marvellous land of wealth and splendour,
where kingdoms waited the coming of the devoted
knight of God. Thus men, women, and children,
princes and serfs, priests and laymen, in a countless,
motley throng, surged toward that mighty cross and
tomb whose possessor was raised above the limitet-
tions of the flesh.
The crusaders had no commissariat and no supply
train, no engines of attack, or other weapons than
those in their hands, and the holy relics they bore
with them. There was no general, no common Ian-
ni THE FIRST CRUSADE 85
guage, no organization ; and so over unknown roads,
and through hostile peoples, they wandered from the
Rhine to the Bosphorus, and from the Bosphorus to
Syria.
These earlier crusades were armed migrations, not
military invasions, and had they met with a deter-
mined enemy, they must have been annihilated; but
it chanced that the Syrians and Egyptians were at
war, and the quarrel was so bitter that the caliph
actually sought the Christian alliance. Even under
such circumstances the waste of life was fabulous,
and, had not Antioch been betrayed, the starving
rabble must have perished under its walls. At Jeru-
salem, also, the Franks were reduced to the last ex-
tremity before they carried the town; and had it not
been for the arrival of a corps of Genoese engineers,
who built movable towers, they would have died mis-
erably of hunger and thirst. Nor was the coming of
this reinforcement preconcerted. On the contrary,
the Italians accidentally lost their ships at Joppa,
and, being left without shelter, sought protection in
the camp of the besiegers just in time
So incapable were the crusaders of regular opera-
tions, that even when the towers were finished and
armed, the leaders did not know how to fill the moat,
and Raymond of Saint Gilles had nothing better to
propose than to offer a penny for every three stones
thrown into the ditch.
On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem was stormed; almost
exactly three years after the march began. Eight
days later Godfrey de Bouillon was elected king, and
then the invaders spread out over the strip of moun-
tainous country which borders the coast of Palestine
86
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
and Syria, and the chiefs built castles in the defiles
of the hills, and bound themselves together by a loose
alliance against the common enemy.
The decentralization of the colony was almost in-
credible. The core of the kingdom was the barony
of Jerusalem, which extended only from the Egyptian
desert to a stream just north of Bey rout, and inland
to the Jordan and the spurs of the hills beyond the
Dead Sea, and yet it was divided into more than
eighteen independent fiefs, whose lords had all the
rights of sovereignty, made war, administered justice,
and coined money . 1
Beside these petty states, the ports were ceded to
the Italian cities whose fleets helped in the conquest.
Venice, Genoa, and Pisa held quarters in Ascalon,
Joppa, Tyre, Acre, and Beyrout, which were governed
by consuls or viscounts, who wrangled with each other
and with the central government.
Such was the kingdom over which Godfrey reigned,
but there were three others like it which together
made up the Frankish monarchy. To the north of
the barony of Jerusalem lay the county of Tripoli, and
beyond Tripoli, extending to Armenia, the principality
of Antioch. To the east of Antioch the county of
Edessa stretched along the base of the Taurus Moun-
tains and spread out somewhat indefinitely beyond
the Euphrates.
Thus on the north Edessa was the outwork of
•Christendom, while to the south the castle of Karak,
which commanded the caravan road between Suez
and Damascus, held a corresponding position among
the hills to the east of the Dead Sea.
1 Les Families d' Outre- Mer t ed. Key, 3*
III.
THE FIRST CRUSADE
87
Beyond the mountains the great plain sweeps away
into Central Asia, and in this plain the Franks never
could maintain their footing. Their failure to do so
proved their ruin, for their position lay exposed to
attack from Damascus ; and it was by operating from
Damascus as a base that Saladin succeeded in forcing
the pass of Banias, and m cutting the Latin posses-
sions in two at the battle of Tiberias
A considerable body of Europeans were thus
driven in like a wedge between Egypt and the
Greek Empire, the two highest civilizations of the
Middle Ages, while in front lay the Syrian cities of
the plain, with whom the Christians were at perma-
nent war. The contact was the closest, the struggle
for existence the sharpest, and the barbaric mind
received a stimulus not unlike the impulse Gaul
received from Rome ; for the interval which sepa-
rated the East from the West, at the beginning of
the twelfth century, was probably not less than that
which divided Italy from Gaul at the time of Caesar.
When Godfrey de Bouillon took the cross, the
Byzantine Empire was already sinking. The East-
ern trade which, for so many centuries, had nour-
ished its population, was beginning to flow directly
from Asia into Italy, and, as the economic aristocracy
of the capital lost its nutriment, it lost its energy.
Apparently it fell in 1081, in the revolution which
raised Alexius Comnenus to the throne. Because
Alexius sacked Constantinople with a following of
mongrel Greeks, Slavs, and Bulgarians, he has been
called the first Greek emperor, but in reality the pure
Greek blood had long since perished. The Byzantine
population at the end of the eleventh century was
88
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
the lees of a multitude of races, — a mixture of Slavs,
Armenians, Jews, Thiacians, and Greeks, a residuum
of the most tenacious organisms, after all that was
higher had disappeared The army was a mixed
horde of Huns, Arabs, Italians, Britons, Franks; of
all in short who could fight and were for sale, while
the Church was servile, the fancy dead, and art and
literature were redolent of decaying wealth.
Nevertheless, ever since the fall of Rome, Con-
stantinople had been the reservoir whence the West
had drawn all its materialistic knowledge, and there-
fore, it was during the centuries when the valley of
the Danube was closed, that the arts fell to their
lowest ebb beyond the Alps and Rhine After pil-
grimages began again in the reign of Stephen, the
Bosphorus lay once more in the path of travel, and
as the returning palmers spread over the West, a
revival followed in their track; a revival in which
the spirit of Byzantium may yet be clearly read in
the architecture of Italy and France. Saint Mark
is a feeble imitation of Saint Sophia, while Viollet-le-
Duc has described how long he hesitated before he
could decide whether the carving of Vfeeiay, Autun,
and Moissac was Greek or French ; and has dwelt
upon the laborious care with which he pored over
all the material, before he became convinced that
the stones were cut by artists trained at Cluny, who
copied Byzantine models. 1
But the great gulf between the economic and the
imaginative development, separated the moribund
Greek society from the semi-childhood of the Franks ;
a chasm in its nature impassable because caused by a
1 Dictionnaire da V Architecture, viii, 108.
Ill THE FIRST CRUSADE 89
difference of nnnd, and which is, perhaps, seen most
strikingly in religious architecture; for religious
architecture, though always embodying the highest
poetical aspirations of every civilization, yet had m
the East and West diametrically opposite points of
departure.
Saint Sophia is pregnant with the spirit of the
age of Justinian. There was no attempt at mystery,
or even solemnity, about the church, for the mind of
the architect was evidently fixed upon solving the
problem of providing the largest and lightest space
possible, in which to display the functions of a pluto-
cratic court His solution was brilliantly successful.
He enlarged the dome and diminished the supports,
until, nothing remaining to interrupt the view, it
seemed as though the roof had been suspended in
the air. For his purpose the extenor had little
value, and he sacrificed it.
The conception of the architects of France was
the converse of this, for it was highly emotional
The gloom of the lofty vaults, dimly lighted by the
subdued splendour of the coloured windows, made
the interior of the Gothic cathedral the most myste-
rious and exciting sanctuary for the celebration of
the miracle which has ever been conceived by man ;
while without, the doors and windows, the pinnacles
and buttresses, were covered with the terrific shapes
of demons and the majestic figures of saints, admon-
ishing the laity of the danger lurking abroad, and
warning them to take refuge within.
But if the Gieeks and the Franks had little affinity
for each other, the case was different with the Sara-
cens* who were then in the full vigour of their intel*
go
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
lectual prime, and in the meridian of their material
splendour.
In the eleventh century, when Paris was still a
cluster of huts cowering for shelter on the islands of
the Seine, and the palace of the Duke of Normandy
and King of England was the paltry White Tower of
London, Cairo was being adorned with those master-
pieces which are still the admiration of the world,
Prisse d’Aven nes considered that, among the city
gates the Bab-el-Nasr stands first m “ taste and
style,” and the famous Bab-el-Zouilyeh is of the
same period. He also thought the mosque of Tey-
loun a “model of elegance and grandeur,” and ob-
served, when criticising the mosque of the Sultan
Hassan, built in 1356, that though imposing and
beautiful, it lacks the unity which is only found in
the earlier Arabic monuments, such as Teylotm 1 In-
deed, the signs are but too apparent that, from the
twelfth century, the instinct for foim began to fail in
Egypt, the surest precursor of artistic decay.
The magnificence of the decoration and furnishing
of the Arabic palaces and houses has seldom been
surpassed, and a few extracts from an inventory of a
sale of the collections of the Caliph Mostanser-Billah,
held in 1050, may give some idea of its gorgeonsness.
Precious Stones. — A chest containing 7 Mudds of emer-
alds; each of these worth at least 300,000 dynars, which
makes in all at the lowest estimation, 36,000,000 francs.
A necklace of precious stones worth about 80,000 dynars.
Seven Wdlbak of magnificent pearls sent by the Emir of
Mecca.
**.»*#• • » *
1 UAri Arabs, ui ti seg.
THE FIRST CRUSADE
91
III.
Glass . — Several chests, containing a large nurabei of
vases ... of the purest crystal, chased and plain.
Other chests filled with precious vases of different mate-
rials.
Table Utensils . — A large number of gold dishes, enam-
elled or plain, in which were mcrusted all sorts of colours,
forming most varied designs.
One hundred cups and other shapes, of bezoar-stone, on
most of which was engraved the name of the Caliph Haroun-
el-Raschid.
Another cup which was 3J hands wide and one deep.
Different Articles . — Chests containing inkstands of dif-
ferent shapes, round or square, small or large, of gold or
silver, sandal wood, aloe, ebony, ivory, and all kinds of
woods, enriched with stones, gold and silver, or remark-
able for beauty and elegance of workmanship.
Twenty- eight enamel dishes inlaid with gold, which the
Caliph Aziz had received as a present from the Greek em-
peror and each of which was valued at 3000 dynars.
Chests filled with an enormous quantity of steel, china,
and glass mirrors, ornamented with gold and silver filagree ,
some were bordered with stones, and had cornelian handles,
and others precious stones. One of them had quite a long
and thick handle of emeralds. These mirrors were enclosed
m cases made of velvet or silk or most beautiful wood ; their
locks were of gold or silver.
Four hundred large cases, ornamented with gold and
filled with all sorts of jewels.
Various silver household goods, and six thousand gold
vases, m which were put narcissus or violets.
Thirty-six thousand pieces of crystal, among them a box
ornamented with figures m relief, weighing 1 7 roks.
9 2
CIVIL!? ATTOK AND DECAY
CHAP
A large number of knives which, at the lowest price, were
sold for 36,000 dinars.
A turban enriched with precious stones, one of the most
curious and valuable articles m the palace * it was said to be
worth 130,000 clynais. The stones which covered it, and
whose weight was 17 roks, were divided between two chiefs,
who both claimed it. One had m his share a ruby weigh-
ing 23 mitqals, and m the share which fell to the other were
100 pearls each of which weighed 3 mitqals. When the
two generals were obliged to fly from Fostat, all these valu-
ables were given up to pillage.
A golden peacock enriched with the most valuable pre-
cious stones the eyes were rubies, the feathers gilded
enamel representing ail the colours of peacock feathers.
A cock of the same metal, with a comb of the largest
rubies covered with pearls and other stones; the eyes also
were made of rubies.
A gazelle whose body was covered all over with pearls
and the most precious stones , the stomach was white and
composed of a series of pearls of the pmest water.
A sardonyx table, with conical feet of the same substance ;
it was large enough for several people to eat there at the
same time.
A garden, the soil made of chased and gilt silver and
yellow earth. There were silver trees, with fruits made of
precious materials,
A golden palm-tree enriched with superb pearls. It was
in a golden chest and its fruit was made of precious stones
representing dates in every stage of ripeness. This tree was
of inestimable value. 1
About the time the monk Gerbert was accused of
sorcery because he understood the elements of geo-
metry, the Caliph Aziz-Billah founded the university
1 L*Art Arafoy 203.
m THE FIRST CRUSADE 93
of Cairo, the greatest Mohammedan institution of
learning This was two hundred years before the
organization of the university of Pans, and the
lectures at the mosque of El-Azhar are said to have
been attended by twelve thousand students. Munk
was of opinion that Arabic philosophy reached its
apogee with Averrhoes, who was born about 1 120. 1
Certainly he was the last of a famous line which
began at Bagdad three centuries earlier, and Hau-
rdau, in describing the great period of Saint Thomas
at Paris, dwelt upon the debt Western learning owed
to the Saracens
The splendour of Haroun-al-Raschid is still pro-
verbial. The tales of his gold and silver, his silks
and gems, almost surpass belief, and even in his
reign the mechanical arts were so advanced that he
sent a clock to Charlemagne.
Humboldt considered the Arabs as the founders of
modern experimental science, and they were relatively
skilful chemists, for they understood the composition
of sulphuric and nitric acid, and of aqua regia, beside
the preparation of mercury and of various oxides of
metals As physicians they were far in advance of
Europe. While the Church healed by miracles, and
put experimental methods under her ban, the famous
Rhazes conducted the hospitals of Bagdad, and in
the tenth century wrote a work in ten books, which
was printed at Venice as late as 1510. Practitioners
of all nations have used his treatise on small-pox and
measles ; he introduced mild purgatives, invented the
seton, and was a remarkable anatomist. He died in
93 *-
1 Milanges , 458
94
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
William of Tyre stated that the Frankish nobles
of Syria preferred the native or Jewish doctors ; and
though Saladin sent his physician to Richard, Richard
never thought of sending an Englishman to Saladin
when afterwards attacked by illness.
Even as late as the middle of the thirteenth cen-
tury little advance seems to have been made in Eu-
rope, for one of the most curious phenomena of the
crusades was the improvement in the health of the
army of Saint Louis after it surrendered. During
the campaign various epidemics had been very fatal ;
but when the soldiers were subjected to the sanitary
regulations of the Egyptian medical staff, disease
disappeared.
The Arabs had a strong taste for mathematics, and
were familiar with most of the discovenes which have
been attributed to astronomers of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuiies.
As early as 1000 spherical trigonometry was in use,
and Aboul-Hassan wrote an excellent treatise on
conic sections. In 833 the Caliph El-Mamoun, hav«
ing founded observatories at Bagdad and Damascus,
caused a degree to be measured on the plain of
Palmyra. By the thirteenth century the Arabic
instruments were comparatively perfect. They had
the astrolabe, the gnomon, the sextant, and the
mariner's compass, and Aboul-Wafa determined the
third lunar variation six hundred years before Tycho
Brahe.
To enumerate all the improvements in agriculture
and manufactures which came from the mediaeval
pilgrimage would take a separate treatise. A French
savant thought of writing a book upon the flora of the
in. THE FIRST CRUSADE 95
crusades alone. The mulberry and the silkworm
were brought from Greece, the maize from Turkey,
the plum from Damascus, the eschalot from A<scalon,
and the windmills with which, down to the present
century, corn was ground, were one of the importa-
tions from the Levant
It might almost be said that all the West knew of
the arts was learned on the road to the sepulchre.
The Tyrians taught the Sicilians to refine sugar, and
the Venetians to make glass ; Damascus steel was a
proverb, Damascus potters were the masters of the
potters of France; the silk, brocades, and carpets of
Syria and Persia were in the twelfth century what
they have been down to the present day, at once the
admiration and despair of Western weavers, while
there can be little doubt that gunpowder was the in-
vention of the chemists of the East
All the evidence tends to prove that the ogive
came from the Levant, and without the ogive Gothic
architecture could never have developed 1 Prior to
the council of Clermont the pointed arch was practi-
cally unknown west of the Adriatic , but the Arabs
had long used it, and it may still be seen in the ninth
century mosque of Teyloun
In Palestine the Franks were surrounded by Sara-
cenic buildings, and employed Saracenic masons, and
the attention of Western architects seems no sooner to
have been drawn to the possibilities of the ogive, than
they saw in it the solution of those problems which had
before defied them. An arch formed by two inter-
secting segments of a circle could be raised to any
height from any base, and was perfectly adapted to
1 See Dictionnaire de V Architecture, Viollet-le-Duc, vi. 446.
9 6
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
vaulting the parallelograms formed by the columns of
the nave Therefore, contemporaneously with the
building of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the
period of transition between the Romanesque and
the Gothic opened m France The two most impor-
tant transition buildings were the abbey of Saint
Denis and the cathedral of Noyon, and, while the
Holy Sepulchre was dedicated in 1 149, the abbey was
completed in 1144, and the cathedral was begun
almost immediately after 1
Thenceforward the movement was rapid, and before
the year 1200, Christian sacred architecture was cul-
minating in those marvels of beauty, the cathedrals
of Paris, of Bourges, of Chartres, and of Le Mans
Yet, though sacred architecture tells the story of the
rise of the imagination as nothing else can, if it be
true that centralization hinges on the preponderance
of the attack in war, the suiesl way of measuring the
advance toward civilization of lude peoples must be
by military engineering
In the eleventh century, noith of the Alps, this
science was rudimentary, and nothing can be more
impressive than to compare the mighty ramparts of
Constantinople with the small square tower which
William the Conqueror found ample for his needs in
London.
When the crusaders were first confronted with the
Greek and Arabic works, they were helpless; nor
were their difficulties altogether those of ignorance.
Such fortifications were excessively costly, and a
1 See les tglises tie la Terre Satnie, Vogiie, 217; Noire Dame tie
Nojfon ; J&ttuies sur THisiott e de TAtt ; Vitet, i u 122; Diclionnaire de
V Architecture* VioIlet-le*Duc, 11. 301.
III.
THE FIRST CRUSADE
97
feudal State was poor because the central power had
not the force to constrain individuals to pay taxes.
The kingdom of Jerusalem was in chronic insol-
vency.
The life of the Latin colony in Syria, therefore,
hung on the development of some financial system
which should make the fortification of Palestine
possible, and such a system grew up through the
operation of the imagination, though in an unusual
manner.
Fetish worship drew a very large annual contribu-
tion from the population in the shape of presents to
propitiate the saints, and one of the effects of the
enthusiasm for the crusades was to build up conven-
tual societies in the Holy Land, which acted as
standing armies The most famous of the military
orders were the Knights of the Temple and the
Knights of Saint John William of Tyre has left an
interesting description of the way in which the Tem-
ple came to be organized : —
“ As though the Lord God sends his grace there where
he pleases, worthy knights, who were of the land beyond the
sea, proposed to stay for ever in the service of Our Lord,
and to live m common, like regular canons. In the hand of
the patriarch they vowed chastity and obedience, and re-
nounced all property. . . . The king and the other barons,
the patriarch and other prelates of the Church, gave them
funds to live on and to clothe themselves. . . . The first
thing which was enjoined on them in pardon for their sins
was to guard the roads by which the pilgrims passed, from
robbers and thieves, who did great harm. This penance
the patriarch and the other bishops enjoined. Nine years
they remained thus in secular habit, wearing such gar-
ments as were given them by the knights and other good
H
98
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP*
people, for the love of God. In the ninth a council was
assembled m France m the city of Troyes. There were
assembled the archbishops of Rheims and Sens and all their
bishops The bishop of Albano especially was there as
papal legate, the abbots of Citeau and Clairvaux, and many
other of the religious.
“ There were established the order and the rules by which
they were to live _ as monks Their habit was ordered to be
white, by the authority of Pope Honortus and the patriarch
of Jerusalem This order had already existed nine years,
as I have told vou, and there were as yet only nine brotheis,
who lived from dav to da) on chanty. From that time their
numbers began to increase, and revenues and tenures were
given them In the time of Pope Eugenius it was ordered
that they should ha\ e sewn upon their copes and on their
robes a cross of led cloth, so that they should be known
among all men . . . From thence have their possessions
so increased as you can see, that the order of the Temple is
m the asc endant . . ‘ Hardly can you find on either side
of the sea a Christian land where this order has not to-day
houses and biethten, and great revenues.” 1
The council of Troyes was held in 1128, and in the
next fifty years, in proportion as the feudal organiza-
tion of the Latin kingdom decayed, the military
orders increased in wealth and power* The Hospital
held nineteen thousand manors in Europe, the Tem-
ple nine thousand, and each manor could maintain a
knight in the field.
At Faris the house of the Temple filled a whole
quarter; its donjon was one of the most superb build-
ings of the Middle Ages ; at a later period, when the
corporation took to banking, it served as a place of
deposit for both public and private treasure, and in
1 Hist tits Croisadcs, xu. 7.
THE FIRST CRUSADE
in
99
times of danger the king himself was glad to take
shelter within its walls.
The creation of this monastic standing army was
evidently due to the inferiority of the attack to the
defence, which made the civil power incapable of
coercing the individual who refused to pay taxes.
The petty barons who built the castles throughout
Palestine were too poor to erect fortifications capable
of resisting the superior engines used in the East.
Therefore the whole burden of the war was thrown
upon the Church, and in all modern history nothing
is more wonderful than the way in which this work
was done
Within fifty years after the conquest the feudal
machinery was in ruin, and the strategic points, one
after another, passed into the hands of the strongest
force of the age, the force which was incarnate im-
agination
The fortresses built by the monks were the ram-
parts of Christendom, and among the remains which
have survived the past, perhaps none are more im-
pressive than the huge castles of the crusaders m the
gorges of the Syrian mountains ; nor do any show
so clearly whence came the rationalistic stimulus
which revolutionized Europe, shattered the Church,
and brought in the economic society which has
ruled Europe since the Templars passed away
Twenty-five miles due west of Homs, at the point
where the Lebanon melts into the Ansaneh range,
the mountains open, and two passes lead by easy
descents to the sea. Through the southern runs
the road to Tripoli, through the northern that to
Tortosa. Between them, on a crag a thousand feet
I GO
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
above the valleys, still stands the castle of the Krak
des Chevaliers, ceded by Count Raymond of Tripoli
to the Hospital in 1145* Towering above the plain
it can be seen for miles, and no description can give
an idea of its gigantic size and power. Coucy and
Pierrefoncls are among the largest fortresses of
Europe, and yet Coucy and Pierrefonds combined
are no larger than the Krak
Compared with it, the works then built in the West
were toys, and the engineering talent shown in its
conception was equalled by the magnificence of its
masonry The Byzantine system was adopted. A
double wall, the inner commanding the outer, with
a moat between; and three enormous towers rising
from the moat, formed the donjon There were
stone machicoulis and all the refinements of defence
which appeared in France under Saint Louis and
his son, and a study of this stupendous monument
shows plainly whence Europeans drew their military
instruction for a century to come.
The Krak was the outwork dominating the plain
where the Christians never made their footing good,
and stood at the apex of a triangle of fortresses as re-
markable as itself. From its ramparts the great white
tower of Chastel-Blanc can be seen, midway between
the outpost commanding the mountain passes and the
base upon the sea held by the Temple ; and from
that tower the troop of Templars rode to relieve the
knights of Saint John, on the day when the cru-
saders routed the conqueror Nour-ed-Din, and cut
his army to pieces as it fled toward the Lake of
Homs, which lies in the distance.
But the white tower is unlike the donjons of other
hi. THE FIRST CRUSADE TOI
lands, and bears the imprint of the force which built
it, for it is not a layman’s hold, but a church, whose
windows are cut m walls thirteen feet thick, whence
the dim light falls across the altar where the magi-
cians wrought their miracles.
Within easy supporting distance lay Tortosa, a
walled town, the outwork of a donjon at least as
strong as the Krak, and built with a perfection of
workmanship, and a beauty of masonry, which proves
at once the knowledge and the resources of the
order. No monarch of the West could, probably,
at that time have undertaken so costly an enter-
prise, and yet Tortosa was but one of four vast
structures which lie within a few miles of each
other. The place was ceded to the Temple in 1183,
just at the beginning of the reign of Philip Augus-
tus, before men dreamed of the more important
French fortifications.
At Margat, a day’s journey to the north, the
Hospital had their base upon the sea : a strong-
hold whose cost must have been fabulous, for it is
perched upon a crag high above the Mediterranean,
and so inaccessible that it is not easy to understand
how the materials for building were collected. Viol-
let-le-Duc, who was lost in admiration at Coucy, de-
clared that it was colossal enough to befit a race of
giants, and yet Coucy could have stood in the court-
yard of Margat
The Arabs, who were excellent engineers, deemed
it a masterpiece, and the Sultan Kalaoun could not
endure the thought of injuring it After he had
mined the great tower and was sure of victory, he
proved to the garrison his power to destroy it, in
102
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP III.
order to induce them to accept most liberal terms
of surrender, and let him have the prize. Perhaps
the best description ever given of the work is in a
letter written by the Sultan of Hamah to his vizier
to announce its fall :
“ The devil himself had taken pleasure in consolidating
its foundations. How many times have the Mussulmans
tried to reach its towers and fallen down the precipices !
Markab is unique, perched on the summit of a rock. It
is accessible to relief, and inaccessible to attack. The
eagle and the vulture alone can fly to its ramparts .” 1
1 See, on the Sjrian castles, £tude sur Us Monuments de r Architect
ture Mihtaire des Croises ett Syne, Rey,
CHAPTER IV
THE SECOND CRUSADE
As the East was richer than the West, the Sara-
cens were capable of a higher centralization than the
Franks, and although they were divided amongst
themselves at the close of the eleventh century, no
long time elapsed after the fall of Jerusalem before
the consolidation began which annihilated the Latin
kingdom.
The Sultan of Persia made Zenghi governor of
Mosul in 1127 Zenghi, who was the first Atabek,
was a commander and organizer of ability, and with
a soldier’s instinct struck where his enemy was vul-
nerable. He first occupied Aleppo, Hamah, and
Homs He then achieved the triumph of his life
by the capture of Edessa The next year he was
murdered, and was succeeded by his still more cele-
brated son, Nour-ed-Dm, who made Aleppo his
capital, and devoted his life to completing the work
his father had begun.
After a series of brilliant campaigns, by a mixture
of vigour and address, Nour-ed-Dm made himself
master of Damascus, and, operating thence as a
base, he conquered Egypt, and occupied Cairo in
1169 During the Egyptian war, a young emir,
named Saladm, rose rapidly into prominence He
103
104
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
was the nephew of the general in command, at
whose death the caliph made him vizier, because he
thought him pliable In this the caliph was mis-
taken, for Saladin was a man of iron will and con-
summate ability William of Tyre even accused
him of having murdered the last Fatimite caliph
with his own hands in order to cause the succes-
sion to pass to Nour-ed-Din, and to seize on the
substance of power himself, as Nour-ed-Din’s rep-
resentative.
Certainly he administered Egypt in his own inter-
est, and not in his master’s ; so much so that Nour-
ed-Dm, having failed to obtain obedience to his
commands, had prepared to maich against him in
person, when, on the eve of his departure, he died.
Saladin then moved on Damascus, and having de-
feated the army of El Melek, the hen to the ciovvn,
at Hamah, he had himself declared Sultan of Egypt
and Syria.
With a power so centralized the Franks would
probably, under the best circumstances, have been
unable to cope. The weakness of the Christians was
radical, and arose from the exuberance of their imag-
ination, which caused them to proceed by miracles,
or more correctly, by magical formulas. An exalted
imagination was the basis of the characters of both
Louis VII. and Saint Bernard, and the faith resulting
therefrom led to the defeat of the second crusade.
The Christian collapse began with the fall of
Edessa, for the County of Edessa was the extreme
northeastern state of the Latin community, and the
key to the cities of the plain. When the first cru-
saders reached Armenia, Baldwin, brother of Godfrey
IV. THE SECOND CRUSADE IO$
de Bouillon, conceived the idea of carving a kingdom
for himself out of the Christian country to the south
of the Taurus range. Taking with him such pilgrims
as he could persuade to go, he started from Mamistra,
just north of the modern Alexandretta, and marched
east along the caravan road. Edessa lay sixteen
hours’ ride beyond the Euphrates, and he reached it
in safety
At this time, though Edessa still nominally formed
part of the Greek Empire, it was m reality independ-
ent, and was governed by an old man named Theodore,
who had originally been sent from Constantinople,
but who had gradually taken the position of a sover-
eign. The sunounding country had been overrun by
Moslems, and Theodore only maintained himself by
paying tribute. The people, therefore, were ready to
welcome any Frankish baron capable of defending
them ; and Baldwin, though a needy adventurer, was
an excellent officer, and well adapted to the emer-
gency.
As he drew near, the townsmen went out to meet
him, and escorted him to the city in triumph, where he
soon supplanted the old Theodore, whom he probably
murdered. He then became Count of Edessa, but he
remained in the country only two years, for in i ioo
he was elected to succeed his brother Godfrey He
was followed as Lord of Edessa by his cousin Godfrey
de Bourg, who, in his turn, was crowned King of
Jerusalem in 1 1 19, and the next count was de Bourg's
cousin, Joscehn de Courtney, who had previously held
as a fief the territory to the west of the Euphrates.
This Joscehn was one of the most renowned warriors
who ever came from France, and while he lived the
106 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
frontier was well defended. So high was his piowess
that he earned the title of “the great,” in an age
when every man was a soldier, and in a country
where arms were the only path to fortune save the
Church.
The story of his death is one of the most dramatic
of that dramatic time As he stood beneath the wall
of a Saracenic tower he had mined, it suddenly fell
and buried him in the ruins. He was taken out a
mangled mass to die, but, as he lay languishing, news
came that the Sultan of Icomum had laid siege to
one of his castles near Tripoli. Feeling that he could
not sit his horse, he called his son and directed him
to collect his vassals and lide to the relief of the
fortress. The youth hesitated, fearing that the
enemy were too numeious Then the old man, griev-
ing to think of the fate of his people when he should
be gone, had himself slung in a litter between two
horses, and marched against the foe
He had not gone far before he was met by a mes-
senger, who told him that when the Saracens heard
the Lord of Courtney was upon the march, they had
raised the siege and fled Then the wounded baron
ordered his litter to be set down upon the ground,
and, stretching out his hands to heaven, he thanked
God who had so honoured him that his enemies dared
not abide his coming even when in the jaws of death,
and died there where he lay.
The second generation of Franks seems to have
deteriorated through the influence of the climate, but
the character of the younger Joscelin was not the
sole cause of the disasters which overtook him. Prob-
ably even his fathei could not permanently have made
IV.
THE SECOND CRUSADE
107
head against the forces which were combining against
him. The weakness of the Frankish kingdom was
inherent: it could not contend with enemies who
were further advanced upon the road toward consol-
idation. Had Western society been enough central-
ized to have organized a force capable of collecting
taxes, and of enforcing obedience to a central admin-
istration, a wage-earning army might have been main-
tained on the frontier As it was, concentration was
impossible, and the scattered nobles were crushed m
detail.
Antioch was the nearest supporting point to Edessa,
and, when Zenghi made his attack, Raymond de
Poitiers, one of the ablest soldiers of his generation,
was the reigning prince. But he was at feud with
the Courtneys , the king at Jerusalem could not force
him to do his duty , the other barons were too distant,
even had they been well disposed , and thus the key
to the Christian position fell without a blow being
struck m its defence
To that emotional generation the loss of Edessa
seemed a reversal of the laws of nature , a conse-
quence not of bad organization but of divine wrath.
The invincible relics had suddenly refused to act, and
the only explanation which occurred to the men of
the time was, that there must have been neglect of
the magical formulas.
Saint Bernard never doubted that God would
fight if duly propitiated , therefore all else must bend
to the task of propitiation : “ What think ye, breth-
ren ? Is the hand of the Lord weakened, or unequal
to the work of defence, that he calls miserable worms
to guard and restore his heritage ? Is he not able to
IDS CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP.
send more than twelve legions of angels, or, to speak
truly, by word deliver his country ? ” 5
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the soul of the second
crusade, was born at the castle of Fontaines, near
Dyon, in 1091, so that his earliest impressions must
have been tinged by the emotional outburst which
followed the council of Clermont The third son of
noble parents, he resembled his mother, who had the
ecstatic temperament. While she lived she tried to
imitate the nuns, and at her death she was surrounded
by holy clerks, who sung with her while she could
speak, and, when articulation failed, watched her lips
moving m praise to God.
From the outset, Bernard craved a monastic life,
and when he grew up insisted on dedicating himself
to Heaven His first success was the conversion of
his brothers, whom he cairied with him to the cloister,
with the exception of the youngest, who was then a
child. As the brothers passed through the castle
courtyard, on their way to the convent, Guy, the
eldest, said to the boy, who was playing there with
other children, “Well, Nivard, all our land is now
yours.” “So you will have heaven and I earth,” the
child answered ; “that is an unequal division.” And
a few years after he joined his brothers. 2 The father
and one daughter then were left alone, and at last
they too entered convents, where they died.
At twenty-two, when Bernard took his vows at
Citeaux, his influence was so strong that he carried
with him thirty of his comrades, and mothers are said
to have hid their sons from him, and wives their hus-
1 Letter 363, ed. 1877, Paris.
2 Sancti Bernard^ Vita et Ret Gestae^ Auctore GuilMmo , 1-3.
iv, THE SECOND CRUSADE log
bands, lest he should lure them away. He actually
broke up so many homes that the abandoned wives
formed a nunnery, which afterward grew rich.
His abilities were so marked that his superiors
singled him out, when he had hardly finished his
novitiate, to found a house m the wilderness This
house became Clairvaux, in the twelfth century the
most famous monastery of the world.
In the Middle Ages, convents were little patronized
until by some miracle they had proved themselves
worthy of hire ; their early years were often passed
in poverty, and Clairvaux was no exception to the
rule, for the brethren suffered privations which nearly
caused revolt. In the midst of his difficulties, Ber-
nard's brother Gerard, who was cellarer, came to
him to complain that the fraternity were without the
barest necessities of life The man of God asked,
“ How much will suffice for present wants ? ” Gdrard
replied, “ Twelve pounds." Bernard dismissed him
and betook himself to prayer. Soon after Gdrard
returned and announced that a woman was without
and wished to speak with him. “ She, when he had
come to her, prostrating herself at his feet, offered
him a gift of twelve pounds, imploring the aid of his
prayers for her husband, who was dangerously sick
Having briefly spoken with her, he dismissed her,
saying: ‘Go You will find your husband well.’
She, going home, found what she had heard had come
to pass. The abbot comforting the weakness of his
cellarer, made him stronger for bearing other trials
from God." 1
Although his family were somewhat sceptical about
1 Secunda Vita S Bemardi Auctore Alano, vi
no
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
his gifts, and even teased him to tears, the monk
William tells, in his chronicle, how he soon performed
an astounding miiacle which made Clairvaux a “veri-
table valley of light,” and then wealth poured in upon
him.
Meanwhile, his constitution, which had never been
vigorous, had been so impaired by his penances that
he was unable to follow the monastic life in its full
rigour, and he therefore threw himself into politics,
to which he was led both by taste and by the current
of events
Clairvaux was founded in 1115, and fifteen years
later Bernard had risen high in his profession. The
turning-point m his life was the part he took in the
recognition of Innocent II. In 1130, Hononus II.
died, and two popes were chosen by the college of
cardinals, Anaclctus and Innocent II Anacletus
stayed in Rome, but Innocent crossed the Alps, and
a council was summoned at Etampes to decide upon
his title. By a unanimous vote the question was
referred to Bernard, and his biographer described how
he examined the evidence with fear and trembling,
and how at last the Holy Ghost spoke through his
mouth, and he recognized Innocent. His decision
was ratified, and soon after he managed to obtain the
adhesion of the King of England to the new pontiff
His success made him the foremost man in Europe,
and when, in 1145, one of his monks was raised to
the papacy as Eugenius III., he wrote with truth,
“ I am said to be more pope than you.”
Perhaps no one ever lived more highly gifted with
the ecstatic temperament than Saint Bernard. He
had the mystci ious attribute of miracles, and, in the
IV.
THE SECOND CRUSADE
III
twelfth century, the miracle was, perhaps, the high-
est expression of force To woik them was a per-
sonal gift, and the possessor of the faculty might, at
his caprice, use his power, like the sorcerer, to aid or
injure other men
One day as Saint Bernard was on his way to a field
at harvest time, the monk who drove the donkey on
which he rode, fell in an epileptic fit. “ Seeing which
the holy man had pity on him, and entreated God
that for the future he would not seize him unaware/'
Accordingly from that day until his death, twenty
years after, “ whenever he was to fall from that dis-
ease, he felt the fit coming for a certain space of time,
so that he had an opportunity to lie down on a bed,
and so avert the bruises of a sudden fall .” 1
This cure was a pure act of grace, like alms, made
to gratify the whim of the saint ; and a man who
could so control nature was more powerful than any
other on earth. Bernard was such a man, and for
this reason he was chosen by acclamation to preach
the second crusade
His sermons have peiished, but two of his letters
have survived , 2 and they explain the essential weak-
ness of a military force raised on the basis of super-
natural intervention He looked upon the approaching
campaign as merely the vehicle for a miracle, and as
devised to offer to those who entered on it a special
chance for salvation. Therefore he appealed to the
criminal classes. “For what is it but an exquisite
and priceless chance of salvation due to God alone,
that the Omnipotent should deign to summon to his
1 Exordium Magnum Cisterctense , vin.
2 Nos. 363 and 423, ed, of 1877, Paris.
212
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
service, as though they weie innocent, murderers,
ravishers, adulterers, perjurers, and those guilty of
every crime > ” 1
Even had an army composed of such material been
well disciplined and well led, it would have been un-
trustworthy in the face of an adversary like Nour-
ed-Dm; but Louis VII of France was as emotional
and as irrational as Saint Bernard. His father had
been a great commander, but he himself had been
educated in the Abbey of Saint Denis, and justified
his wife’s scornful jest, who, when she left him for
Raymond de Poitiers, said she had married a monk.
The whole world held him lightly, even the priests
sneered at him, and Innocent II. spoke of him as a
child “who must be stopped from learning rebellion.”
Indeed, the pope underrated him, lor he appointed
his own nephew to the See of Bourges in defiance of
the king, and the insult roused him to resistance.
Louis raised an army and invaded the County of
Champagne, where the bishop had taken refuge.
There he stormed and burnt Vitry, and some thirteen
hundred men, women, and children, who had taken
refuge in the church, perished in the flames of the
blazing town. Horror seems to have unhinged his
mind, absolution did not calm him, and at last he
came to believe that his only hope of salvation lay in
a pilgrimage to the Sepulchre. On Palm Sunday,
1146, when Bernard harangued a vast throng at
V^zelay, the king was the first to prostrate himself,
and take the cross from his hands.
With that day began the most marvellous part of
the saint’s marvellous career, and were the events
1 Letter 363.
IV.
THE SECOND CRUSADE
1*3
which followed less well authenticated, they would
be incredible. In that age miracles were as common
as medical cures are now, and yet Bernard’s perform-
ances so astonished his contemporaries that they
drew up a solemnly attested record of what they saw,
that the story of his preaching might never be ques-
tioned.
When he neared a town the bells were rung, and
young and old, from far and near, thronged about
him in crowds so dense that, at Constance, no one
saw what passed, because no one dared to venture
into the press At Troyes he was in danger of being
suffocated. Elsewhere the sick were brought to him
by a ladder as he stood at a window out of reach.
What he did may be judged by the work of a single
day.
“When the holy man entered Germany he shone so
marvellously by cures, that it can neither be told in words,
nor would it be believed if it were told. For those testify
who were present in the country of Constance, near the
town of Doningen, who diligently investigated these things,
and saw them with their eyes, that m one day eleven blind
received their sight by the laying on of his hands, ten
maimed were restored, and eighteen lame made straight .” 1
Thus, literally by thousands, the blind saw, the
lame walked, the maimed were made whole. He
cast out devils, turned water into wine, raised the
dead. But no modern description can give an idea
of the paroxysm of excitement , the stories must be
read in the chronicles themselves. Yet, strangely
enough, such was the strength of the materialistic
inheritance from the Empire, that Bernard does not
1 Be Vita S. Bernardiy Auctore Gaufrido , iv. 5,
114
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
always seem fully to have believed in himself. He
was tinged with some shade of scepticism. The
meeting at Vezelay was held on March 24, 1146
Four weeks later, on April 21, at a council held at
Chartres, the command of the army to invade Pales-
tine was offered to the Abbot of Clairvaux, Had the
saint thoroughly believed m himself and his twelve
legions of angels, he would not have hesitated, for no
enemy could have withstood God. In fact he was
panic-stricken, and wrote a letter to the pope which
might befit a modern clergyman.
After explaining that he had been chosen com-
mander against his will, he exclaimed, “ Who am I,
that I should set camps in order, or should march
before armed men ? Or what is so remote from my
profession, even had I the strength, and the know-
ledge were not lacking ? . . . I beseech you, by that
charity you especially owe me, that you do not aban-
don me to the wills of men." 1
During 1146 and 1147 two vast mixed multitudes,
swarming with criminals and women, gathered at
Metz and Ratisbon. As a fighting force these hosts
were decidedly inferior to the bands which had left
Europe fifty years before, under Tancred and God-
frey de Bouillon, and they were besides commanded
by the semi-emasculated King of France.
The Germans cannot be considered as having
taken any part m the war, for they perished without
having struck a blow. The Greek emperor caused
them to be lured into the mountains of Asia Minor,
where they were abandoned by their guides, and
wasted away from exposure, hunger, and thirst, until
1 Letter 256, ed. of 1877, Paris,
iv. THE SECOND CRUSADE 115
the Saracens destroyed them without allowing them
to come to battle.
The French fared little better. In crossing the
Cadmus Mountains, their lack of discipline occasioned
a defeat, which made William of Tyre wonder at the
ways of God.
“ To no one should the things done by our Lord be dis-
pleasing, for all his works are right and good, but accoidmg
to the judgment of men it was marvellous how our Loid
permitted the Franks (who are the people m the world who
believe m him and honour him most) to be thus destroyed
by the enemies of the faith.” 1
Soon after this check Louis was joined by the
Grand Master of the Temple, under whose guidance
he reached Atalia, a Greek port in Pamphyha : and
here, had the king been a rationalist, he would have
stormed the town and used it as a base of operations
against Syria In the eyes of laymen, the undisguised
hostility of the emperor would have fully justified
such an attack. But Louis was a devotee, bound
by a vow to the performance of a certain mystic
formula, and one part of his vow was not to attack
Christians during his pilgrimage In his mind the
danger of disaster from supernatural displeasure was
greater than the strategic advantage , and so he al-
lowed his army to rot before the walls in the dead of
winter, without tents or supplies, until it wasted to a
shadow of its former strength.
Finally the governor contracted to provide ship-
ping, but he delayed for another five weeks, and
when the transports came they were too few. Even
1 Hist. cits Croisades , xvi. 25.
1 16 Civil lZ\riO\ AMi DEC \V nup.
then Louis would not sti ike, but abandoning the
poor and sick to their fate, be sailed away with the
flower of his tioops, and by spring the corpses ot
those whom he had deserted bred a pestilence which
depopulated the city.
When he artived at Antioch new humiliations and
disasters awaited him. Raymond de Poitiers was
one of the handsomest and most gifted men of this
time. Affable, couiteous, brave, and sagacious, m
many respects a great captain, his failing was a hot
temper, which led him to his ruin He forsook Jos-
celin through jealousy, and the fall of Edessa cost
him throne and life
After the successes of Zenghi, a very short expe-
rience of Nour-ecl-Dm sufficed to convince Prince
Raymond that Antioch could not be held without
re-establishing the frontier ; and when Loins at rived,
Raymond tried hard to persuade him to abandon his
pilgrimage for that season, and make a campaign in
the north.
William of Tyre thought the plan good, and
believed that the Saracens were, for the moment, too
demoralized to resist. Evidently, by advancing from
Antioch, Nour-ed-Din could have been isolated,
whereas on the south he was covered by Damascus,
one of the strongest places in the East,
Such considerations had no weight with Louis, for,
to his emotional temperament, military strategy lay
in obtaining supernatural aid, without which no wis-
dom could avail, and with which victory was sure.
He therefoie insisted on the punctilious performance
of the religious rites, and one of the most interesting
passages in William of Tyre is the account of the
IV.
THE SECOND CRUSADE
II 7
interview between him and Raymond, when a move-
ment against the cities of the north was discussed
u The prince, who had tried the temper of the king sev-
eral times privately, and not found what he wanted, came
one day to him before his barons and made his requests to
the best of his power. Many reasons he showed that if he
would agree, he would do his soul much good, and would
win the applause of his age , Christendom would be so
benefited by this thing. The king took counsel, and then
he answered that he was vowed to the Sepulchre, and had
taken the cross particularly to go there , that, since he had
left his country, he had met with many hindrances, and that
he had no wish to begin any wars until he had perfected his
pilgrimage.” 1
This refusal so exasperated Prince Raymond that
he threw off all disguise, and became the avowed
lover of the queen, who detested her husband. Louis,
shortly afterward, escaped by night from Antioch,
taking Eleanor with him by force, and thus the only
hope for the recovery of Edessa was lost
For the emotionalist everything yielded to the
transcendent importance of propitiatoiy rites ; there-
fore Louis ascended Calvary, kissed the stones, in-
toned the chants, received the benediction, and lost
Palestine, Thus, by the middle of the twelfth century,
the idealist had begun to flag in the struggle for life.
An attempt, indeed, was afterwards made upon
Damascus, but it only served to expose the weakness
of the men who relied on magic. By the time the
advance began, confidence had been restored among
the Saracens, the attack was repulsed, and Nour-ed-
Din had only to move from the north to throw the
1 Hist des Croisades , xvi. 27.
It 8 CIVILIZATION* \ND r>E r\V chap.
crusaders back upon Jerusalem, covered with ridicule.
Nothing conveys so vivid an idea of the shock these
reverses gave believeis, as the words in which Saint
Bernard defended his ptophecies.
“ Do they not say among the pagans, where is their God ?
Nor is it wonderful. The sons of the Church, who are
known by the name of Christians, are laid low m the desert,
destroyed by the swoid, or consumed by famine. The Lord
hath poured contempt upon princes, and hath caused them to
wander m the wilderness, where there is no way. Grief and
misfortune ha\e followed their steps, fear and confusion have
been m the pala< es of the kings themselves. How have the
feet strayed of those promising peace and blessings. We
have said peace and there is no peace, we have promised
good fortune and behold tribulation, as if we had acted in
this matter with rashness and levity. . . . Yet if one of two
things must be, 1 prefer to have men murmur against me
rather than God. It us good if I am worthy to be used as a
shield. I take willingly the slanders of detractors, and the
poisoned stings of blasphemers, that they may not reach
him. 1 do not shrink from loss of glory that his may not
be attacked, who gives it to me to be glorified in the words
of the Psalmist: * Because for thy sake I have borne re-
proach ; shame hath covered my face.’ ” *
According to the account of William of Tyre, both
sides felt the end to be near. After the failure of
Louis the Pious, Prince Raymond was the first to go
down before the storm he had too late seen gather-
ing* Nour-ed-Din fell upon his country with fire
and sword, defeated him, cut off his head and right
arm, and sent them to Bagdad as trophies. The
wretched Joscelin died in a dungeon at Aleppo, while
Nour-ed-Din entered Damascus, and thus consoli*
1 XV Considtrahme, ii. X.
IV.
THE SECOND CRUSADE
119
dated the Syrian cities of the plain. Thenceforward
the decentralized Franks lay helpless in the grasp of
their compact adversary, and all that was imagina-
tive in the Middle Ages received its death-wound at
Tiberias. That action was the beginning of the
decay of fetish-worship.
The crusaders believed they had found the cross
on which Christ died at Jerusalem. They venerated
it as a charm no less powerful than the Sepulchre it-
self, and having this advantage over the tomb, that it
was portable. They thought it invincible, and used
it not only as a weapon against living enemies, but as
a means of controlling nature. A remarkable example
of the magical properties of this relic was given in
the retreat from Bosra.
Baldwin III. was crowned in 1144, when only thir-
teen. The kingdom was then at peace with Damascus,
in whose territory Bosra lay; but, notwithstanding,
the child’s advisers eagerly listened to the offer of the
emir in command to betray the town, and hastened
forward the departure of an expedition, in spite of
the protests of the envoys from Damascus. On the
march the troops suffered severely from heat and
thirst, and on their arrival were appalled to find a
loyal garrison A siege was out of the question,
and a regular retreat so hazardous that the barons
besought the king to fly and save the cross; but
the boy refused, and stayed with his men to fight
to the last The outlook was terrible, for the vege-
tation was dry, and when the march began —
“ The Turks threw Greek fire everywhere, so that it seemed
as if the whole country burned. The high flames and thick
120
CIVILIZATION* AND DKP VV
CHAP
smoke blinded our men. Then were they so beset the) knew
not what to do. But when there is great need, and men’s
help fails, then should one seek aid of our Lord, and cry to
him to care for us; so did our Chi istians then, for they
called the Archbishop Robert of Nuzaieth, who earned the
true cross before them, and begged him that he would piay
our Lord, who to save them had suffered death upon that
cross, that he would bring them fiom this penl, for they
could not endure it, nor did they look for other help than
his. Truly, they were there all black and scorched, like
smiths, from the fire and smoke. The archbishop dismounted
and kneeled down, and prayed our Loid w ith many tears that
he would have mercy on his people ; then he arose and held
the true cross toward the fire which the wmd brought strongly
against them. Our Lord by his great mercy regaided his
people in the great penl which the) suffered, for the wind
changed straightway and blew the fire and smoke into the
faces of the enemy who had lighted it, so that they weie
forced to scatter over the count! y and fly. Our men, when
they saw this, wept for joy, foi they perceived that our Lord
had not forgotten them.”
Even then they were in extreme peril, for but one
way was open, for which they had no guide. Sud-
denly, a “ knight appealed before the troop whom no
one in the host knew. He sat a white horse, and
carried a crimson banner, he wore a haubeik, whose
sleeves came only to the elbow. He offered to guide
them, and he put himself in front ; he brought them
to cool sweet springs ; he made them sleep in
comfortable and good places. And he so guided
them that on the third day they came to the city
of Cadre .” 1
The mighty relic of the cross was taken and defiled
by the Saracens at Hattin, where the Christians suf-
I Wilhrni of Tyre, xvi, n, 12.
IV. THE SECOND CRUSADE 1 21
fered a decisive defeat, caused by the impotence of
the central administration at Jerusalem.
Reginald de Chatillon was the type of the twelfth
century adventurer. He came to Palestine in the
train of Louis the Pious, and he stayed there because
he married a princess He was a brave soldier, but
greedy, violent, and rash, and his insubordination
precipitated the catastrophe which led to the fall of
the capital.
At the siege of Ascalon he so fascinated Constance,
Princess of Antioch, widow of Raymond, that she per-
sisted in marrying him, although 'she was sought by
many of the greatest nobles, and he was only a knight
Her choice was disastrous He had hardly entered
on his government in the north before he quarrelled
with the Greek emperor, who forced him to do pen-
ance with a rope about his neck Afterward he was
taken prisoner by Nour-ed-Din, who only liberated
him after sixteen years, when his wife was dead. He
soon married again, this time also another great heir-
ess, Etiennette de Milly, Lady of Karak and Montreal,
and, as her husband, Reginald became commander of
the fortress of Karak to the east of the Dead Sea,
which formed the defence against Egypt. But as
the commander of so important a post, this reckless
and rapacious adventurer defied the authority of his
feudal superior, and by plundering caravans on the
Damascus road so irritated Saladin that “in 1187 he
burst, with a powerful army, into the Holy Land,
made King Guy prisoner, and the Prince Reginald,
whose head he cut off with his own hand.” 1
Guy de Lusignan had been crowned at Jerusalem
1 Les Families d* Outre-Mer, Du Cange, 405.
122
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
the year before Saladm’s invasion, and when war
broke out he was at feud with the Count of Tripoli.
The imminence of the common danger brought about
some semblance of cohesion among the nobles, who
agreed to put every available man in the field. The
castles were stripped of their garrisons so that they
were indefensible in case of reverse, and about fifty
thousand troops were concentrated at Sepphoris in
Galilee.
The contingents of the Temple and Hospital were
well organized and well disciplined, but the army, as
a whole, was rather a loose gathering of the retainers
of thirty or forty independent chiefs, than a compact
mass, subject to a single will, such as the Egyptian
revenues enabled Saladin to put in the field.
Suddenly news came to Sepphoris, that the Saracens
had poured through the pass of Banias and lay before
Tiberias. Dissensions broke out at once, which Guy
de Lusignan could not control. He was not a man
of strong character, and had he been, he was only one
among a dozen princes, any one of whom could quit
the army and retire to his castle if he felt so disposed.
The Count of Tripoli, who seems to have been the
ablest soldier among the Franks, saw the folly of
leaving water and marching across a burning country
under a July sun, instead of waiting to be attacked.
As he represented, he of all men was most interested
in relieving Tiberias, for it was his town, and his wife
was within the walls ; yet such was the jealousy of
him in the Latin camp that his advice was rejected,
and an advance began on July 3, 1187.
Three miles from Tiberias the action opened by a
furious attack on the rear guard, formed by the Temple
IV.
THE SECOND CRUSADE
123
and the Hospital. When they gave ground Guy lost
heart and ordered a halt The night which followed
was frightful. The Moslems fired the dry under-
growth, and, amidst flames and smoke, the Franks
lay till dawn, tormented by hunger and thirst, and
exposed to clouds of arrows which the enemy poured
in on them.
At dawn fighting began again, but the demoralized
infantry fled to a hill, whence they refused to move.
The Count of Tripoli, seeing the battle lost, cut his
way out with a band of his followers, but Guy de
Lusignan, Reginald de Chatillon, and a multitude of
knights and nobles were captured. The orders were
practically annihilated, the whole able-bodied popula-
tion cut to pieces, and the holy cross, which had been
borne before the host as an invincible engine of war,
was seized and defiled on the mountain where Jesus
taught his disciples to love their enemies
Emmad-Eddin, an Arabic historian, has described
the veneration of the Christians for their talisman,
their adoration of it in peace, and their devotion to it
in battles , and his words help a modern generation
to conceive the shock its worshippers received when
it betrayed its helplessness.
“ The great cross was taken before the king, and many of
the impious sought death about it. When it was held aloft
the infidels bent the knee and bowed the head. They had
enriched it with gold and jewels ; they carried it on days of
great solemnity, and looked upon it as their first duty to
defend it in battle. The capture of this cross was more
grievous to them than the capture of their king.”
CHAPTER V
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
Most writers on the crusades have noticed the
change which followed the battle of Tiberias. Pigeon-
neau, for example, in his History of Commerce , pointed
out that, after the loss of Jerusalem, the Christians
“ became more and more intent on economic in-
terests, n and the “ crusades became more and more
political and commercial, rather than religious, expe-
ditions.” 1
In other words, when decentralization reached its
limit, the form of competition changed, and consolida-
tion began. With the reopening of the valley of the
Danube, the current turned. At first the tide ran
feebly, but after the conquest of the Holy Land the
channels of trade altered ; capital began to accumu-
late ; and by the thirteenth century money controlled
Palestine and Italy, and was rapidly subduing France.
Heyd remarked that “the commerce to the Levant
took a leap, during the crusades, of which the bold-
est imagination could hardly have dreamed shortly
before ,” 2 because the possession of the Syrian ports
brought Europe into direct communication with Asia,
and accelerated exchanges.
1 Htstoire de la Commerce dc la France , 132
8 Histoire du Commerce du Levant, Heyd, French trans., L 163*
124
CHAP. V.
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
125
From the dawn of European history to the rise of
modern London, the Eastern trade has enriched every
community where it has centred, and, among others,
North Italy in the Middle Ages. Venice, Florence,
Genoa, and Pisa were its creations.
In the year 452, when the barbarian migrations
were flowing over the Roman provinces in steadily
increasing volume, the Huns sacked Aquileia, and
the inhabitants of the ravaged districts fled for shelter
to the islands which lie in the shallow water at the
head of the Adriatic For many generations these
fugitives remained poor, subsisting mainly on fish,
and selling salt as their only product ; but gradually
they developed into a race highly adapted to flourish
under the conditions which began to prevail after the
council of Clermont
Isolated save toward the sea, without agriculture
or mines, but two paths were open to them, piracy
and commerce * and they excelled in both. By the
reign of Charlemagne they were prosperous ; and
when the closing of the valley of the Danube forced
traffic to go by sea, Venice and Amalfi obtained a
monopoly of what was left of the Eastern trade. For
many years, however, that trade was not highly lucra-
tive. Though Rome always offered a certain market
for brocades for vestments and for altar coverings,
for incense, and jewels for shrines, ready money was
scarce, the West having few products which Asiatics
or Africans were willing to take in exchange for
their goods. Therefore it was not through enter-
prises sanctioned by the priesthood, that Venice won
in the economic competition which began to prevail in
the eleventh century.
126
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
Venetians prospered because they were bolder and
more unscrupulous than their neighbours. They did
without compunction what was needful for gain, even
when the needful thing was a damnable crime in the
eyes of the devout.
The valley of the Nile, though fertile, produces
neither wood nor iron, nor men of the fighting type ;
for these the caliphs were ready to pay, and the
Venetians provided them all. Even as early as 971
dealings with the common enemy in material of war
had reached proportions which not only stimulated
the Emperor John Zimisces to energetic diplomatic
remonstrance, but made him threaten to burn all the
ships he captured laden with suspicious cargoes.
To sell timber for ships, and iron for swords, to the
Saracens, was a mortal sm m children of the Church ;
but such a sin was as nothing beside the infamy of
kidnapping believers as slaves for infidels, who made
them soldiers to fight against their God. Charle-
magne and the popes after him tried to suppress the
traffic, but without avail. Slaving was so lucrative
that it was carried on in the streets of Rome herself, 1
and in the thirteenth century two thousand Europeans
were annually disposed of in Damietta and Alexandria,
from whom the Mamelukes, the finest corps of soldiers
in the East, were recruited.
Thus a race grew up in Italy, which differed from
the people of France and Germany because of the
absence of those qualities which had caused the Ger-
mans to survive when the inhabitants of the Empire
decayed. The mediaeval Italians prospered because
they were lacking in the imagination which made the
1 BisiQirt du Levant^ Heyd, French trans., i. 95.
V.
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
127
Northern peoples subservient to the miracle-worker,
and among mediaeval Italians the Venetians, from
their exposed position, came to be the most daring,
energetic, and unscrupulous By the end of the
eleventh century their fleet was so superior to the
Greek, that the Emperor Alexis had to confide to
them the defence of the harbour of Durazzo against
Robert Guiscard Guiscard attacked Durazzo in
1081, at the time of the revolution which immediately
preceded the debasement of the Byzantine coinage;
and the demonstration that Venice had already ab-
sorbed most of the carrying trade, seems to prove
that, during the last half of the eleventh century, the
centre of exchanges had a pronounced tendency to
abandon Constantinople. Moreover, the result of the
campaign showed that the Venetian navy was the
strongest in the Mediterranean, and this was of vital
moment to the success of the crusades twenty years
later, for, without the command of the sea, the perma-
nent occupation of Palestine would have been impos-
sible.
After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, almost the
first operations of Godfrey de Bouillon were against
the Syrian ports, but as he controlled too small a
force to act alone, he made a treaty with Venice,
by which, in consideration of two hundred ships, he
promised to cede to her a third part of every town
taken. Baldwin made a similar arrangement with
the Genoese, and, as the coast was subdued, the
Italian cities assumed their grants, and established
their administrations. In the end the Venetians
predominated at Tyre, the Genoese at Acre, and
the Pisans at Antioch. Before the discovery of the
120
CHAP,
Cape of Good Hope, the spices, drugs, brocades,
carpets, porcelains, and gems of India and China,
reached the Mediterranean mainly by two routes
One by way of the Persian Gulf to Bagdad, up the
Euphrates to Rakka, and by land to Aleppo, whence
they were conveyed by caravan either to Antioch or
Damascus Damascus, beside being the starting-
place of caravans for Mecca and Egypt, and the
emporium for the products of Persia, had impor-
tant manufactures of its own. Its glass, porcelain,
steel, and brocades were famous, and it was a chief
market for furs, which were highly prized through-
out the Middle Ages, when heating was not under-
stood.
The second route was by water Indian merchants
usually sold their cargoes at Aden, whence they were
taken to a port in Upper Egypt, floated down the
Nile to Cairo, and bought by Euiopeans at Damietta
or Alexandria. The products of Egypt itself were
valuable, and next to Constantinople, Cairo was the
richest city west of the Indus.
What Europe gave to the Orientals in return is not
so well known ; but, beside raw materials and slaves,
her woollens were much esteemed. At all events,
exchanges must have become more favourable to
her, as is proved by the increased supply of the
precious metals.
Why the short period of expansion, which followed
upon the re-establishment of the silver standard in
the West, should have been succeeded by a sharp
contraction is unknown, but the fact seems proved
by the coinage. In the reign of Charlemagne a
silver pound of 7680 grains was made , the mone-
v THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 129
tary unit, which was divided into 240 denarii, or
pence. 1
For some time these pence w$re tolerably main-
tained, but as the empire of Charlemagne disinte-
grated, they deteriorated until, by the end of the
twelfth century, those coined at Venice were but a
quarter of their original weight and three parts alloy 2
After Hattm a new expansion began, in which Venice
took the lead The battle was fought in 1 1 87, and
some years later, but probably before 1200, thegrosso
was struck, a piece of fine silver, of good weight, which
thereafter was maintained at the standard. Half a
century later gold appeared. Florence coined the
florin m 1252, Venice the ducat in 1284, and, be-
tween the two dates, Saint Louis issued his crowns.
The return of the precious metals to the West
indicated a revival of trade and a change in the
form of competition. Instead of the imagination,
the economic faculty began to predominate, and
energy chose money as its vent Within a genera-
tion the miracle fell decisively in power, and the
beginning of this most crucial of social revolutions
is visible in the third crusade, the famous expedition
led by Philip Augustus and Coeur de Lion.
These two great soldiers probably learned the art
of fortification at the siege of Acre, the most re-
markable passage of arms of the Middle Ages. The
siege is said to have cost one hundred thousand
lives, and certainly called forth all the engineering
1 See, on this question of cheaper money in the Carlovingian period,
Nouveau Manuel de Numnmatique , Blanchet, 1. 101, also Hisioirt
du Commerce de la France , Pigeonneau, 87 et seq
2 Le Monete di Venezia , Papadopoli, 73
130 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
skill of the time. Guy de Lusignan, having been
liberated by Saladin soon after Hattin, wandered
about the country, abandoned and forlorn, until at
last he sat down before Acre, in 1189, with a force
inferior to the garrison There he was joined by the
kings of France and England, who succeeded in cap-
turing the city after a desperate defence of two years.
An immense booty was taken, but the clergy com-
plained that two secular princes had embezzled the
heritage of God. On the other hand, the troops had
not received the usual assistance from miracles ; for
though assaults were delivered almost daily, none
were worked, and the Virgin heiself only appeared
once, and then so quietly as to arouse no enthusiasm
After the surrender Philip went home, while
Richard remained m command. The whole country
had been oveirun, only a few strongholds like the
Kutk des Chevaliers and Tortosa held out , and
Richard, far from following the example of the first
crusaders, who marched straight for the relics at
Jerusalem, turned his attention to re-establishing the
centtes of trade upon the coast.
He moved south along the shore, keeping close to
his fleet, with the enemy following on the mountains.
As he appipached Joppa, the Saracens descended into
the plain and gave battle They were decisively de-
feated, and Richard occupied Joppa without resist-
ance. From Joppa the road ran direct to Jerusalem.
The way was not long nor the country difficult,
and there is no reason to suppose an attack to have
been particularly hazardous. On the contrary, when
Richard advanced, the opposition was not unusually
stubborn, and he actually pursued the enemy to
v. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 131
within sight of the walls. Yet he resolutely resisted
the pressure of the clergy to undertake a siege, the
inference being that the power which controlled him
held Jerusalem to be worthless. That power must
have been capital, for the treaty which he negotiated
was as frankly mercenary as though made in modern
times. The seaboard from Tyre to Joppa was ceded
to the Franks ; Ascalon, which was the key to Egypt,
was dismantled, and the only mention made of Jeru-
salem was that it should be open to pilgrims m the
future, as it had been in the past Of the cross,
which fifty years before had been prized above all
the treasures of the East, not a word was said, nor
does it appear that, after Hattin, either Infidels or
Christians attached a money value to it.
Some chroniclers have insisted that Richard felt
remorse at thus abandoning his God ; and when, in a
skirmish, he saw the walls of Jerusalem, they related
that he hid his face and wept. He may have done so,
but, during his life, the time came when Christian
knights felt naught but exultation at having success-
fully bartered the Sepulchre for money After Rich-
ard’s departure, the situation of the Franks in the
Holy Land went rapidly from bad to worse. The
decay of faith constantly relaxed the bond which had
once united them against the Moslems, while they
were divided amongst themselves by commercial jeal-
ousies. The Temple and the Hospital carried on per-
petual private wars about disputed property, the fourth
crusade miscarried, and the garrison of Joppa was mas-
sacred, while Europe looked on with indifference.
When this point was reached, the instinct of self-
preservation seems to have roused the clergy to the
13-
civilization AND DECAY
CHAP
fact that their fate was bound up with the fate of the
holy places : if the miracle were discredited, their
reign was at an end Accordingly, Innocent III., on
his election, threw himself into a new agitation with
all the intensity of his nature. Foulques de Neuilly
was chosen to preach, like Samt Bernard ; but his
success, at first, was not flattering. He was insulted
publicly by Richard, and was even accused of having
embezzled the funds entrusted to him. At length,
in the year 1 199, Tybalt, Count of Champagne, and
Louis, Count of Blois, took the cross at a tournament
they were holding at the castle of Eery. They soon
were joined by others, but piobably the most famous
baion of the pilgrimage was Simon de Montfort
At the end of the twelfth century the great fiefs
had not been absorbed, and the Count of Champagne
was a powerful sovereign He was therefore chosen
leader of the expedition, and, at a meeting held at
Compiegne, the three chief princes agreed to send a
committee of six to Venice to contract for transporta-
tion. In this committee, Ville-Hardouin, who wrote
the chronicle of the war, represented Tybalt.
The doge was then Henry Dandolo, perhaps the
most remarkable man Venice ever produced. Though
nearly ninety-five, he was as vigorous as in middle
life A materialist and a sceptic, he was the best
sailor, the ablest diplomatist, and the keenest specu-
lator in Europe ; and while, as a statesman and a com-
mander, he raised his country to the pinnacle of glory,
he proved himself the easy superior of Innocent III.
in intrigue. So eminent were his abilities that, by
common consent, he was chosen leader of a force
which held some of the foremost captains of the age ;
v THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 1 33
and when, by his sagacity, Constantinople had been
captured, he refused the imperial crown
Ville-Hardouin always spoke of him with deep re-
spect as “the good duke, exceeding wise and prudent;”
and, indeed, without him the Frankish princes would
certainly have fallen victims to the cunning of the
Greeks, whom he alone knew how to over-reach, and
whom he hated because his eyes had been seared by
the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, when he had been
upon a mission at his court.
In his hands the Frankish envoys were like children,
bewildered by the wealth and splendour which sur-
rounded them. After stating their errand to Dandolo,
they waited eight days for an answer, and were then
tendered a contract which has the look of having been
part of a premeditated plan to ensnare the crusaders,
and make them serve the republic.
The Venetians bound themselves to provide ship-
ping for 4500 knights with their horses, 9000 squires,
and 20,000 foot, with provisions for nine months, for
85,000 marks of silver, probably about equal to
$5>5oo,ooo of our money. But beside this the city
proposed, “for the love of God,” to add fifty galleys,
and divide the conquests equally Whatever its
character, and however much such obligations were
beyond the ability of the Franks, the contract was
executed and sent to Innocent for ratification, who
approved it with the proviso that no hostilities should
be undertaken against Christians during the crusade.
The pilgrims were to meet at Venice in the spring.
When Ville-Hardouin returned, Tybalt was dying,
and his loss threw all into confusion. Possibly also
the suspicion spread that the Venetians had imposed
*34
CIVILIZATION AND DEC YY
CHAP
on the committee, for many of the nobles sailed from
other ports where better terms were to be made,
among whom was Reginald de Dampierre, to whom
Tybalt had confided his treasure. So, in the spring
of 1202, hardly more than half the knights presented
themselves at Venice, and these found it quite im-
possible to meet their engagements. Even when the
princes had sent their plate and jewels to the Ducal
Palace, a deficit, estimated at 34,000 marks, remained.
On their side the Venetians declined to make any
abatement of their puce, but offered as a compromise
to give time, and collect the balance from plunder.
As a preliminary they proposed an attack on Zara,
an Adriatic port, which had revolted and transferred
its allegiance to the King of Hungaiy.
Few propositions could have been a greater outrage
on the Church. Not only were the people of Zara
fellow-Christians, against whom the Franks had no
complaint, but the King of Hungary was himself a
crusader, his dominions were under the protection
of the pope, and an attack on him was tantamount
to an attack on Rome herself.
On these points difference of opinion was impos-
sible, and the papal legate, with all the other ecclesi-
astics, denounced the Venetians and threatened them
with excommunication. The result showed that force
already expressed itself in the West through money,
and not through the imagination.
What followed is the more interesting since it can
be demonstrated that, when beyond the Alps, and
withdrawn from the pressure of capital, the French
barons were as emotional as ever. While these very
negotiations were pending, the subjects of Philip
V
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
*35
Augustus had deserted him in a mass, and had grov-
elled before Innocent as submissively as if he had
been Hildebrand.
The first wife of Philip Augustus was Ingeburga,
a Danish princess, for whom he had an irrepressible
disinclination. In 1195 he obtained a divorce from
her, by an assembly of prelates presided over by the
Cardinal of Champagne He then married Agnes de
M6ranie, to whom he was devotedly attached ; Inge-
burga appealed to Rome, and Innocent declared the
divorce void, and ordered Philip to separate “from
his concubine.”
Philip refused, and Innocent commanded his legate
to put the kingdom under interdict. At Vienne, in
the month of January, 1200, at the dead of night, the
magical formulas were recited. When the Christ
upon the altar had been veiled, the sacred wafer
burned, the miracle-working corpses hidden in the
crypt, before the shuddering people, the priest laid
his curse upon the king until he should put away his
harlot.
From that hour all religious rites were suspended.
The church doors were barred, the bells were silent,
the sick died unshriven, the dead lay unbuned. The
king summoned his bishops, and threatened to drive
them from France : it was of no avail. The barons
shrank from him, his very men-at-arms fell off from
him, he was alone as Henry had been at Canossa
The people were frenzied, and even went to England
to obtain priestly aid. The Count of Ponthieu had
to marry Philip’s sister at Rouen, within the Norman
jurisdiction.
In his extremity Philip called a parliament at Paris,
136
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
and Agnes, clad m mourning, implored protection,
but not a man moved ; a mortal terror was m every
heart She was then m the seventh month. The
assembly decided that the king must submit, and
Agnes supplicated the pope not to divide her from
her husband , the crown, she said, was indifferent to
her. But this was a struggle for supremacy, and
Innocent was inexorable. A council was convened
at Ndelle, where Philip promised to take back Inge-
burga and part from Agnes. He explained that she
was pregnant, and to leave the realm might kill her;
but the priests demanded absolute submission, and
he swore upon the evangelists to see her no more.
Agnes, broken by her misery, set forth for a Nor-
man castle, where she died in bearing a son, whom
she called Tristan, from her sorrow at his birth.
The soldier, who belonged to the old imaginative
society, had been conquered by the Church, which
was the incarnation of the imagination ; but Dandolo
was a different development. He was the creation
of economic competition, and he trampled the clergy
under his feet*
Although, apparently, profoundly sceptical, as the
man must be who is the channel through which
money acts, he understood how to play upon the
imaginations of others, and arranged a solemn func-
tion to glorify the Sepulchre. One Sunday he sum-
moned both citizens and pilgrims to Saint Mark’s,
and mounting the pulpit, he addressed the congre-
gation.
" My lords, you are engaged to the greatest people of the
world, for the highest enterprise that ever was undertaken ;
and I am old and feeble, and need repose, and am infirm
v. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 1 37
m body , but I see that none can command and control you
as I can, who am your doge. If you will permit me to take
the cross to lead you, and let my son stay here m my place
and conduct the government, I will go to live or die with
you, and with the pilgrims.” 1
Ville-Hardouin’s simple chronicle shows how per-
fectly the old man knew his audience : —
“ There was great pity among the people of the country
and the pilgrims, and many tears were shed, because this
worthy man had so much cause to stay behind ; for he was
old and ... his sight poor.” 2
Amidst an outburst of enthusiasm assent was
given. Then, while the church rang with shouts,
Dandolo knelt before the altar, in a passion of tears
fixed the cross to the ducal bonnet, and rose, the
commander of the finest army in the world.
And Dandolo was a great commander ; a com-
mander of the highest stamp He tolerated no
insubordination, and trod the clergy down. When
Peter of Capua, the papal legate, interfered, Dandolo
sternly told him that the army of Christ lacked not
for military chiefs, and that if priests would stay
therein they must content themselves with prayers.
A Cistercian monk, named Gunther, who had been
appointed to follow his abbot on the pilgrimage, kept
a chronicle of what he saw. His superior, named
Martin, was so disheartened at Venice that he asked
the legate for absolution from his vow, and for per-
mission to return to his convent at Bile ; but this
request the cardinal refused. The priests had deter-
mined to stay by Dandolo and fight him to the last.
1 ViUe-Hardoutn , ed. Wailly, xiv. 65.
2 Ibid.
138
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Therefore the abbot sailed with the Venetians, but he
learned a bitter lesson at Zara There the clergy
received a letter from Innocent, explaining the posi-
tion of the Church, and threatening with excommuni-
cation all who should molest the King of Hungary.
Simon de Montfort and a portion of the more devout,
who had from the first been scandalized at the con-
tract made with Dandolo, then withdrew and camped
apart ; and, at a meeting called to consider the situa-
tion, Guy, Abbot of Vaux-de-Cernay, tried to read the
letter.- An outbreak followed, and some of the chron-
iclers assert that the Venetians would have murdered
Guy, had not Simon de Montfort stood by him sword
in hand . 1
On the main point there is no doubt. The priests
ignominiously failed to protect their ally ; the attack
was made, and nothing shows that even de Montfort
refused to share in it, or to partake of the plunder
after the city fell. There was no resistance. The
besieged made no better defence than hanging crosses
on their walls, and on the fifth day capitulated. First
the Franks divided the plunder with the Italians ; then
they sent an embassy to Rome to ask for absolution.
They alleged that they were helpless, and either had
to accept the terms offered by Dandolo, or abandon
their enterprise. Innocent submitted. He coupled
his forgiveness, indeed, with the condition that the
plunder should be returned ; 2 yet no record remains
that a single mark, of all the treasures taken from
Zara, ever found its way back to the original owners.
The Venetians neither asked for pardon nor noticed
1 Histonens de la France^ xix 23.
3 Pairologuz Cursus Complete, Migne, ccxiv. 11S0.
V.
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
139
the excommunication. On the contrary, Dandolo
used the time when the envoys were at Rome in
maturing the monstrous crime of diverting the cru-
sade from Palestine to Constantinople.
Just before the departure from Venice, an event
happened which Ville-Hardouin called “one of the
greatest marvels you ever heard of.” In 1195 the
Greek emperor, named Isaac, had been dethroned,
imprisoned, and blinded by his brother Alexis, who
usurped the throne. Isaac's son, also named Alexis,
escaped, and took shelter with his brother-in-law,
Philip of Swabia. Philip could not help him, but
suggested to him to apply to the crusaders in Venice,
and ask them for aid. Whether or not this applica-
tion had been arranged by Dandolo, does not appear
Alexis went to Venice, where he was cordially re-
ceived by the doge; but as the fleet was then weigh-
ing anchor, his affairs were postponed until after the
attack on Zara, when an embassy from Philip arrived,
which brought up the whole situation at Constanti-
nople for consideration In the struggle which fol-
lowed between the Venetians and the Church, the
Franks lay like a prize destined to fall to the stronger,
and in Gunther's narrative the love the priests bore
their natural champions can be plainly seen. In the
thirteenth century, as in the fifth century, the eccle-
siastics recognized that over a monied oligarchy they
could never have control ; accordingly the monks
hated the Venetians, whom Gunther stigmatized as
“a people excessively greedy of money,'' always ready
to commit sacrilege for gain.
On his side Dandolo followed his instinct, and tried
to bribe the pope by offering him an union of the
140
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAI*
communions. But Innocent was inflexible. He wrote
in indignation that the crusaders had sworn to avenge
the wrongs of Christ, and likened those who should
turn back to Lot’s wife, whom God turned into a
pillar of salt for disobeying his commands. 1
Yet, though the priesthood put forth its whole
strength, it was beaten The power of wealth was
too great. No serious defection took place. Ville-
Hardouin gave a list of those who left the fleet,
among whom was Simon tie Montfort, adding con-
temptuously, “Thus those left the host, . . . which
was great shame to them ” 2
Judging by the words alone, a century might have
separated the writer and his comrades from the
barons who abandoned Agnes to Innocent ; yet they
were the same men transplanted to an economic
civilization, and excited by the power of wealth.
On Easter Monday, 1203, the fleet sailed for Corfu,
where another and more serious split occurred. But
the dazzling prize finally prevailed over the fear of the
supernatural, and, getting under way once more, the
pilgrims crossed the Sea of Marmora, and anchored
at the convent of Saint Stephen, about twelve miles
from Constantinople Since exchanges had again
returned to Italy, the vitality of the Greek Empire
had burned low. It was failing fast through inani-
tion. But Byzantium was still defended by those
stupendous fortifications which were impregnable
from the land, and only to be assailed from the sea
by an admiral of genius.
Such an one was Dandolo, a born seaman, sagacious
1 HUtonms de la Ft ance, xix. 421,
® Chromque , ed, Buchon, 44.
v. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 141
yet fiery; and, besides, a pilot of the port. At a
council of war he laid out a plan of campaign : —
" My lords, I know more of the character of this coun-
try than you do, for I have been here before. You have
before you the greatest and most perilous enterprise which
any men have ever undertaken, and therefore it would be
well that we should act prudently.” 1
He then explained how the attack should be made;
and had the Franks implicitly obeyed him, the town
would have been carried at the first assault. Three
days later the allies occupied Scutari, the Asiatic
suburb of Constantinople, and lay there ten days
collecting supplies On the twelfth they stormed
the tower of Galata, which commanded Pera, the key
to the Golden Horn. While the action was going on,
Dandolo forced his way into the port The entrance
was defended not only by a great tower, but by a
huge iron chain, fastened to piles, and covered by
twenty galleys armed with machines.
Nothing stopped the Venetians. Disregarding the
fire, the sailors sprang on the chain, and from thence
gained the decks of the Greek galleys, whose crews
they threw overboard. Meanwhile, one of the Italian
ships, provided with steel shears, bore down 011 the
cable, cut it, and led the way into the harbour.
The weakest part of the walls being uncovered,
Dandolo insisted that the only hope for success lay
in assaulting from ship-board where the battlements
were lowest ; but the French obstinately refused to
depart from their habits, and determined to fight on
horseback. The event proved Dandolo’s wisdom;
1 Ville-Hardomn, ed. Buchon, 51.
142
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
for though the attack failed through the mistake of
dividing the force, and of attempting the fortifica-
tions toward the land, the doge so led his sailors
that Ville-Hardouin kindled with enthusiasm as he
told the tale.
When the old man saw his ships recoil before the
tremendous fire from the battlements,
“so that the galleys could not make the land, then theie
was seen a strange sight, for the duke of Venice, who was
an old man, and saw not well, was fully armed and com-
manded his galley, and had the gonfalon of Samt Mark’s
before him , and he cried to his men to put him ashore, or
if they would not he would do justice on their bodies , and
they brought the galley to shore, and they sallied forth and
carried the banner before him to the shore. And when the
Venetians saw the gonfalon of Saint Mark’s ashore, and the
galley of the lord ashore before them, they were all ashamed
and made for the land, and rushed out from their ships pell-
mell. Then might one see a marvellous assault. And thus
testifies Geoffrey de Ville-Hardoum, the marshal of Cham-
pagne, who dictates this book, that more than forty declare
they saw the banner of Samt Mark of Venice on one of the
towers, and none knew who carried it thither.” 1
Once a foothold on the ramparts had been gained,
the Greeks fled, twenty-five towers fell in quick suc-
cession, and the Italians had already entered the
streets and fired the houses to drive the enemy from
the roofs, when news was brought that Alexis was
advancing from the gates, and threatened to envelop
the French. Indeed, the danger was extreme ; for,
as Ville-Hardouin explained, the crusaders were won-
drous few when compared with the garrison, for they
1 Chromque de Vtlle-IIardouin^ ed. Buchon, 69.
V.
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
143
“had so many men we should all have been engulfed
amongst them.” 1 With the instinct of a great com-
mander, Dandolo instantly sounded a retreat, aban-
doned the half-conquered town, and hastened to the
support of his allies. He reached the ground oppor-
tunely, for Alexis, when he saw the reinforcement,
retreated without striking a blow.
That night Alexis fled, leaving Constantinople
without a government , and the people took the
blind Isaac from his dungeon and set him on the
throne. In theory, therefore, the work of the crusa-
ders was done', and they were free to embark for
Palestine to battle for the Sepulchre. In fact, the
thing they came for remained to be obtained, and
what they demanded amounted to the ruin of the
empire Young Alexis had promised 200,000 marks
of silver, to join the crusade himself, to provide ra-
tions for a year, and to recognize the supremacy of
Rome , but such promises were- impossible to fulfil
During a delay of six months the situation daily grew
more strained, a bitter hatred sprang up between the
foreigners and the natives, riots broke out, conflagra-
tions followed, and at last the allies sent a deputation
to the palace to demand the execution of the treaty.
In despair, Alexis attacked the fleet with fire-ships,
and his failure led to a revolution in which he was
killed. Isaac died from terror, and one Moursouffie
was raised to the throne. In their extremity the
Greeks had recourse to treachery, and nearly suc-
ceeded in enticing the Frankish princes to a banquet,
at which they were to have been assassinated. The
plot was frustrated by the sagacity of Dandolo, who
1 Chronique , ed. Wailly, xxxvn. 1 78.
144
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
would allow no one to trust themselves within the
walls ; then both sides prepared for war
Defeat had taught the Fianks obedience, and they
consented to serve on the galleys. They embarked
on April 8, 1204, to be ready for an assault in the
morning* But though the attack was made in more
than one hundred places at once, “yet for our sins
were the pilgrims repulsed ” Then the landsmen
proposed to try some other part of the walls, but the
sailors told them that elsewhere the current would
sweep them away ; and “ know,” said the marshal,
“ there were some who would have been well content
had the current swept them away” altogether, “for
they were in great peril ” 1
This repulse fell on a Friday, the following Mon-
day the attack was renewed, and at first with small
success, but at length —
"Our Lord raised a wind called Boreas . . . and two
ships which were lashed together, the one named the Pil-
grim and the other the Paradise , approached a tower on
either side, just as God and the wind brought them, so that
the ladder of the Ptlgtim was fixed to the tower; and
straightway a Venetian and a French knight . . , scaled
the tower, and others followed them, and those in the tower
were discomforted and fled.” 2
From the moment the walls were carried, the battle
turned into a massacre. The ramparts were scaled
m all directions, the gates were burst open with bat-
tering rams, the allies poured into the streets, and one
of the most awful sacks of the Middle Ages began
Nothing was so sacred as to escape from pillage*
1 Chronique, ed. Wailly, lii. 239, 2 Chronique, ed. Buchon, 96.
V. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 1 45
The tombs of the emperors were violated, and the
body of Justinian stripped The altar of the Virgin,
the glory of Saint Sophia, was broken in pieces, and
the veil of the sanctuary torn to rags The crusaders
played dice on the tables which represented the
apostles, and drank themselves drunk in the holy
chalices. Horses and mules were driven into the
sanctuary, and when they fell under their burdens,
the blood from their wounds stained the floor of the
cathedral. At last a young prostitute mounted the
patriarch's chair, intoned a lewd chant, and danced
before the pilgrims. Thus fell Constantinople, by
the arms of the soldiers of Christ, on the twelfth day
of April, in the year one thousand two hundred and
four. Since the sack of Rome by Alaric no such
prize had ever fallen to a victor, and the crusaders
were drunk with their success. Ville-Hardouin esti-
mated that the share of the Franks, after deducting
some fifty thousand marks which the Venetians col-
lected from them, came to four hundred thousand
marks of silver, not to speak of masses of plunder of
which no account was taken. The gain was so great
there seemed no end to the gold and silver, the pre-
cious stones, the silks, the ermines, and whatever was
costly in the world.
“And Geoffrey de Ville-Hardouin testifies of his own
knowledge, that since the beginning of time, there was
never so much taken in one town. Every one took what he
wanted, and there was enough. Thus were the host of the
pilgrims and of the Venetians quartered, and there was great
joy and honour for the victory which God had given them,
since those who had been poor were rich and happy /' 1
1 Ckromgue, ed, Buchon, 99.
L
146
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHA*.
In obedience to the soothsayers, the de\otees of
Louis the Pious had perished by tens of thousands,
and over their corpses the Moslems had marched to
victory. The defenders of Christ’s cross had been
slaughtered like sheep upon the mountains of the
Beatitudes, and sold into slavery in herds at Damas-
cus and Aleppo , even the men who, at the bidding
of God’s vicar, had left Dandolo to fight for the Sep-
ulchre upon the barren hills of Palestine, had been
immolated. Five hundred had perished in shipwreck,
more had been massacred in Illyria, none had re-
ceived reward. But those who, in defiance of the
supernatural and in contempt of their vow, had
followed the excommunicated Venetian to plunder
fellow-Christians, had won immeasuiable glory, and
been sated with incalculable spoil
The pilgrims who, constant to the end, had been
spilling their blood in God’s service, came trooping
to the Bosphorus to share in the last remaining
crumbs ; the knights of the Temple and the Hospital
set sail for Greece, where money might still be made
by the sword, and the King of Jerusalem stood before
the Tomb, naked unto his enemies. Innocent him-
self was cowed ; his commands had been disregarded
and his curse defied ; laymen had insulted his legate,
and had, without consulting him, divided among
themselves the patronage of the Church ; and yet
for the strongest there was no moral law. When
Baldwin announced that he was emperor, the pope
called him “his dearest son,” and received his sub-
jects into the Roman communion 1
But yesterday, the greatest king of Christendom
1 Patrologuz Cmsas Completes , Migne, ccxv. 454.
V.
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
147
had stood weeping, begging for the life of his wife ;
a hundred years earlier an emperor had stood bare-
foot, and freezing in the snow, at the gate of Canossa,
as a penance for rebellion; but in 1204 a Venetian
merchant was blessed by the haughtiest of popes for
having stolen Christ's army, made war on his flock,
spurned his viceregent, flouted his legate, and usurped
his patrimony. He had appointed a patriarch with-
out a reference to Rome. All was forgiven, the ap-
pointment was confirmed, the sinner was shriven ;
nothing could longer resist the power of money, for
consolidation had begun.
Yet, though nature may discriminate against him,
the emotionalist will always be an emotionalist, for
such is the texture of his brain , and while he breathes,
he will hate the materialist. The next year Baldwin
was defeated and captured by the Bulgarians, and then
Innocent wrote a letter to the Marquis of Montferrat,
which showed how the wound had rankled when he
blessed the conqueror.
He said bitterly : —
“ You had nothing against the Greeks, and you were false
to your vows because you did not fight the Saracens, but the
Christians; you did not capture Jerusalem, but Constanti-
nople; you preferred earthly to heavenly treasures. But
what was far graver, you have spared neither religion, nor
age, nor sex, and you have committed adulteries, fornica-
tions and incests before men’s eyes. ... Nor did the im-
perial treasures suffice you, nor the plunder alike of rich and
poor. You laid your hands on the possessions of the Church,
you tore the silver panels from the altars, you broke mto the
sanctuaries and carried away the images, the crosses and the
relics, so that the Greeks, though afflicted by persecution,
scorn to render obedience to the apostolic chair, since they
148
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
see in the Latins nothing but an example of perdition and
of the works of darkness, and therefore rightly abhor them
more than dogs ” 1
For the north and west of Europe the crusade of
Constantinople seems to have been the turning point
whence the imagination rapidly declined. At the
opening of the thirteenth century, everything shows
that the genuine ecstatic type predominated in the
Church — the quality of mmd which believed in the
miracle, and therefore valued the amulet more than
money. Innocent himself, with all his apparent
worldliness, must have been such a man ; for, though
the material advantages of a union with the Greek
Church far outweighed the Sepulchre, his resistance
to the diveision of the army from Palestine was un-
shaken to the last The same feeling permeated the
inferior clergy, and an anecdote told by Gunther
shows that even so late as the year 1 204 the monks
unaffectedly despised wealth in its vulgar form.
“ When therefore the victors set themselves with alacrity to
spoil the conqueied town, which was theirs by right of war,
the abbot Martin began to think about his share of the plun-
der ; and lest, when everything had been given to others,
he should be left empty-handed, he proposed to stretch out
his consecrated hand to the booty. But since he thought
the taking of secular things unworthy, he bestirred himself to
obtain a portion of the sacred relics, which he knew were
there m great quantities.” 2
The idea was no sooner conceived than executed.
Although private marauding was punished with death,
he did not hesitate, but hastened to a church, where
1 Migne, ccxv 7x2.
2 Histona Capta a Latims Comte ntinopoleos t Migne, ccxii. 1 9,
V
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
149
he found a frightened old monk upon his knees, whom
he commanded in a terrible voice to produce his relics
or prepare for death. He was shown a chest full to
the brim Plunging in his arms, he took all he could
carry, hurried to his ship and hid his booty in his cabin ;
and he did this in a town whose streets were literally
flowing with gold and silver He had his reward
Though a sacrilegious thief, angels guarded him by
sea and land until he reached his cloister at Bade
Then he distributed his plunder through the diocese
Occasionally, when the form of competition has
abruptly changed, nature works rapidly Within a
single generation after Hattin, the attitude, not only
of the laity but of the clergy, had been reversed, and
money was recognized, even by the monks, as the
end of human effort.
The relics at Jerusalem had first drawn the crusad-
ers to the East, and, incidentally, the capture of the
Syrian seaports led to the reopening of trade and the
recentrahzation of the Western world. As long as
imagination remained the dominant force, and the
miracle retained its power, the ambition of the
Franks was limited to holding the country which
contained their talismans ; but as wealth accumu-
lated, and the economic type began to supplant the
ecstatic, a different policy came to prevail
Beside the cities of the Holy Land, two other por-
tions of the Levant had a high money value — the
Bosphorus and the valley of the Nile. In spite of
Rome, the Venetians, in 1204, had seized Constan-
tinople; at the Lateran council of 1215, Innocent
himself proposed an attack on Cairc. Though con-
ceived by Innocent, the details of the campaign were
ISO CIVILIZATION* AND DECAY CHAP.
arranged by Honoiius III, who was consecrated in
July, 1216; these details are, however, unimportant:
the interest of the crusade lies in its close. John of
Brienne, King of Jerusalem, nominally commanded,
but the force he led little resembled Dandolo's Far
from being that compact mass which can only be
given cohesion by money, it rather had the character
of such an hysterical mob as Louis the Pious led to
destruction.
After some semblance of a movement on Jeru-
salem, the army was conveyed to the Delta of the
Nile, and Damietta was invested in 1218 Here the
besiegers amounted to little more than a fluctuating
rabble of pilgrims, who came and went at their pleas-
ure, usually serving about six months. Among such
material, military discipline could not exist, but, on
the contrary, the inflammable multitude were pecul-
iarly adapted to be handled by a priest, and soon the
papal legate assumed control Cardinal Pelagius was
a Spaniard who had been promoted by Innocent in
1206. His temperament was highly emotional, and,
armed with plenary power by Honorius, he exerted
himself to inflame the pilgrims to the utmost. After
a blockade of eighteen months Damietta was reduced
to extremity, and to save the city the sultan offered
the whole Holy Land, except the fortress of Karak,
together with the funds needed to rebuild the walls
of Jerusalem, King John, and all the soldiers, who
understood the difficulty of invading Egypt, favoured
a peace ; but Pelagius, whose heart was fixed on the
plunder of Cairo, prevented the council from reach-
ing a decision. Therefore the siege went on, and
presently the ramparts were carried without loss, as
v. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 151
the whole population had perished from hunger and
pestilence
This victory made Pelagius a dictator, and he in-
sisted on an advance on the capital John, and the
grand masters of the military orders, pointed out
the disaster which must follow, as it was July, and
the Nile was rising. In a few weeks the country
would be under water Moreover, the fleet could
not ascend the river, therefore the army must be
isolated in the heart of a hostile country, and prob-
ably overwhelmed by superior numbers.
Pelagius reviled them He told them God loved
not cowards, but champions who valued his glory
more than they feared death. He threatened them
with excommunication should they hang back. Near
midsummer, 1221, the march began, and the pilgrims
advanced to the apex of the delta, where they halted,
with the enemy on the opposite shore.
The river was level with its banks, the situation was
desperate, and yet even then the sultan sent an em-
bassy offering the whole of the Holy Land in exchange
for the evacuation of Egypt. The soldiers of all nations
were strenuously for peace, the priests as strenuously
for war They felt confident of repeating the sack of
Constantinople at Cairo, nor can there be a greater
contrast than Martin spurning the wealth of Constan-
tinople as dross, and Pelagius rejecting the Sepulchre
that he might glut himself with Egyptian wealth.
But all history shows that the emotionalist cannot
compete with the materialist upon his own ground.
In the end, under free economic competition, he
must be eliminated. Pelagius tarried idly in the jaws
of death until the Nile rose and engulfed him.
CHAPTER VI
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE
Physical weakness has always been the vulnerable
point of the sacred caste, for priests have rarely been
warriors, and faith has seldom been so profound as
to guarantee ecclesiastics against attack. This diffi-
culty was marked in the early Middle Ages, when,
although disintegration so far prevailed as to threaten
the very tradition of centralized power, a strong
leaven of the ancient materialism remained.
In the ninth century the trend toward decentraliza-
tion was resistless. Although several of the descend-
ants ot Charlemagne were men of ability and energy,
the defence was so superior to the attack that they
could not coerce their vassals, and their domains
melted away into independent sovereignties until the
crown became elective, and the monarchy almost a
tradition. During the tenth century it seems possi-
ble that the regal authority might have been obliter-
ated, even to the last trace, had it not been for the
Church, which was in sore need of a champion. The
priesthood cared nothing for the legitimate line ;
what they sought was a protector, and accordingly
they chose, not the descendant of Charlemagne, but
him who, in the words of the Archbishop of Rheims,
was “distinguished by his wisdom and who found
*53
chap. vi. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 153
support in the greatness of his soul ” Hugh Capet
succeeded Louis V. because he was the best chief of
police in France
From such an alliance, between the priest and the
soldier, has always sprung the dogma of the divine
right of kings. In mediaeval Europe, enchantment
was a chief element of the royal power. The mon-
arch was anointed with a magic oil, girt with a
sacred sword, given a supernatural banner, and en-
dowed with the gift of miracles His touch healed
disease. In return for these gifts, he fought the
battles of the Church, whose property was the natural
prey of a predatory baronage. Every diocese and
every abbey was embroiled in endless local wars,
which lasted from generation to generation, and
sometimes from century to century. A good ex-
ample was the interminable feud between the Abbey
of Vezelay and the Counts of Nevers, and a letter of
a papal legate named Conon, which described one
of the countless raids, gives an idea of the ferocity
of the attack.
“The men of the Count of Nevers have burst open the
doors of the cloister, have thrown stones on the reliquaries
which contain the bodies of Samt Lazarus, of Saint Martha,
of Saint Andocious, and of Saint Pontianus ; they have not
even respected the crucifix in which was preserved a mor-
sel of the true cross, they have beaten the monks, they have
driven them out with stones, and having taken one of them,
they have treated him m an infamous manner.” 1
Until the stimulus given by the crusades was
felt, subinfeudation went on uninterruptedly; the
1 JBtbl dc Vj&cole des Charles, 3d Series, ii. 353.
154 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP.
Capetians were as unable to stem the current as the
Carlovingians before them, so that, under Philip I.,
the royal domain had become almost as much dismem
bered as the kingdom of Lothaire a century earlier.
Consolidation began after the council of Clermont,
and Sugeris Life of Loins the Fat is the story of the
last years of the partisan warfare between the crown
and the petty nobility which had been going on since
the time of Hugh Capet
During this long period the kings had fought a
losing battle, and without the material resources of
the Church would have been overpowered. Even as
it was they failed to hold their own, and yet the
wealth of the clergy was relatively enormous. The
single abbey of Saint Denis was said to have con-
trolled ten thousand men, and though this may be
an exaggeration, the corporation was organized on a
gigantic scale
Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries it
held in France alone three cities, upwards of seventy-
four villages, twenty-nine manors attached to these
possessions, over a hundred parishes, and a great
many chapels bringing in valuable rentals, beside
numerous vineyards, mills and fields, with fifteen for-
ests of the first class 1
Sugeris description of the country at the begin-
ning of the twelfth century is highly dramatic.
Every strong position, like a hill or a forest, was a
baron's hold, from whence he rode to plunder and
torment the people One of the most terrible of
these robbers was Hugh du Puiset, a man whom
the Abbot of Saint Denis calls a ruffian, the issue of a
1 Histoire dcPAbhaye de Sami Dents , D’Ayzac, L 361-9,
VI.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE
155
long line of ruffians To the churchman, Hugh was
the incarnation of evil. He oppressed the clergy,
and though hated by all, few dared oppose him At
last he attacked Ad£le, Countess of Chartres, daugh-
ter of William the Conqueror, who went with her son
Tybalt to seek redress from the king. Louis did not
relish the campaign, and the monk described how
the lady taunted him with the defeat his father had
suffered from the father of Hugh, who pursued him
to Orleans, captured a hundred of his knights, and
cast his bishops into dungeons.
Afterward, an assembly was held at Melun to con-
sider the situation, and there a concourse of prelates,
clerks, and monks “ threw themselves at the king’s
feet and implored him, to his great embarrassment,
to repress this most greedy robber Hugh, who, more
rapacious than a wolf, devoured their lands ” 1
Certainly the priests had cause for alarm, for the
venerable Archbishop of Chartres, who was present,
had been captured, loaded with irons, and long left to
languish in prison.
Three times this baron was defeated, but even
when a prisoner, his family connection was so power-
ful he was permitted to escape. At last he died like
a wolf, fighting to the last, having impaled the Sen-
eschal of France on his spear.
* Even singly, such men were almost a match for
both Church and Crown; but when joined in a
league, especially if allied to one of the great feuda-
tories, such as the Duke of Normandy, they felt sure
of victory. One day, when Eudes, Count of Corbeil,
was to join this very Hugh, he put aside his armour*
1 Vie de Louis le Gros , Suger, ed. Molimer, 6i, 62.
156
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
bearer who was attending him, and said to his wife :
“Pray, noble countess, bring the glittering sword to
the noble count, since he who takes it from you as a
count, shall to-day leturn it as a king ” 1
The immediate effect of the crusades was to carry
numbers of these petty princes to Palestine, where
they were often killed or ruined. As their power of
resistance weakened, the crown gained, and Louis
the Fat reconquered the domain. His active life be-
gan m 1097, the year of the invasion of Palestine, and
his absorption of the lordship of Montlheri is a good
illustration of his success
The family of Rochefort-Montlbdri owned several
of the strongest donjons near Paris, and was divided
into two branches, the one xepresented by Guy Trous-
seau, Lord of Montlheri, the other by Guy the Red,
Lord of Rochefoit. Guy Trousseau’s father was
named Milo, and all three went to Syria, where Milo
was killed, and his son disgraced himself. Suger
spoke of him with extreme disdain : —
** Guy Trousseau, son of Milo of Montlheri, a restless man
and a disturber of the kingdom, returned home from a pil-
grimage to the Holy Sepulchre, broken down by the anxiety
of a long journey and by the vexation of many troubles.
And . . . [being] panic stricken at Antioch at the approach
of Corboran, and escaping down from a wall [he] . . .
abandoned the army of God and fled destitute of every-
thing.” 2
Returning a ruined man, he married his daughter
to the illegitimate son of Philip, a half-brother of
Louis, a child of twelve ; and as his guardians, the
1 Fie de Louis U Gros t Suger, «d. Molimer, 70.
* Ih& 9 * 8 .
VI. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 157
king and prince got possession of the castle This
castle was almost at the gates of Paris, and a stand-
ing menace to the communications of the kingdom :
therefore their delight was great “They rejoiced
as though they had taken a straw from their eyes, or
as though they had burst the barrier which imprisoned
them M1 And the old king said to his son “ Guard
well the tower, Louis, which has aged me with cha-
grin, and through whose treachery and wicked fraud
I have never known peace and quiet/* 1 2
Yet the destruction of the local nobility in Syria
was the least important part of the social revolution
wrought by the crusades, for though the power of the
barons might have thus been temporarily broken,
they could never have been reduced to impotence
unless wealth had grown equal to organizing an over-
whelming attack. The accumulation of wealth fol-
lowed the opening of the Eastern trade, and its first
effect was to cause the incorporation of the com-
munes.
Prior to 1095 but one town is known to have been
chartered, Saint Quentin, the capital of Vermandois,
about 1080, 3 but after the opening of the Syrian ports
the whole complexion of society changed. Noyon
was chartered in 1 108, Laon in mi, Amiens in 1 1 13,
and then free boroughs sprang up on every side.
For want of the mariner’s compass, commerce could
not pass north by the Straits of Gibraltar. Merchan-
dise had therefore to go by land, and exchanges be-
tween the north and south of Europe centred in the
1 Suger, ed. Molinier, 18
2 Ibid
8 &tude$ sur les origtnes dt la commune de Saint Quentin , Giry, 9.
1 58 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
County of Champagne, whose fairs became the great
market of the thirteenth centuiy.
The earliest dated document relating to these fairs
is a deed drawn in 1114 by Hugh, Count of Troyes,
by which he conveyed certain revenues derived from
them to the Abbey of Montier-en-Der. Fifty years
later, such mentions had grown frequent, and by the
year 1200 the fairs had attained their full develop-
ment. 1
Weaving had been an industry in Flanders under
the Romans, and in the time of Charlemagne the
cloth of the Low Countries had been famous ; but in
the twelfth century the manufacture spread into the
adjoining provinces of France, and woollen became
the most valuable Euiopean expoit The fleeces
were brought chiefly from England, the weaving was
done on the Continent, and one of the sources of
the Florentine wealth was the dressing and dyeing
of these fabrics to prepare them for the Asiatic
market.
For mutual defence, the industrial towns of the
north formed a league called the Hanse of London,
because London was the seat of the chief counting-
house. This league at first included only seventeen
cities, with Ypres and Bruges at the head, but the
association afterward increased to fifty or sixty,
stretching as far west as Le Mans, as far south as
the Burgundian frontier, and as far east as Liege.
Exclusive of the royal domain, which was well consol-
idated under Philip Augustus, the French portion of
this region substantially comprised the counties of
1 See &iudes sur Us Foires de Champagne, Bourquelot, 72, 74; and
generally on this subject.
VI. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 1 59
Blois, Vermandois, Anjou, Champagne, and the Duchy
of Normandy. This district, which has ever since
formed the core of France, became centralized at
Paris between the beginning of the reign of Philip
Augustus in 1 180 and the reign of Philip the Fair a
century later, and there can be little doubt that this
centralization was the effect of the accumulation of
capital, which created a permanent police.
The merchants of all the cities of the league bound
themselves to trade exclusively at the fairs of Cham-
pagne, and, to prosper, the first obstacle they had to
overcome was the difficulty and cost of transporta-
tion. Not only were the roads unsafe, because of
the strength of the castles in which the predatory
nobility lived, but the multiplicity of jurisdictions
added to taxes. As late as the end of the thirteenth
century, a convention was made between fifteen of
the more important Italian cities, such as Florence,
Genoa, Venice, and Milan, and Otho of Burgundy,
by which, in consideration of protection upon the
roads, tolls were to be paid at Gevry, D6le, Augerans,
Salins, Chalamont, and Pontarlier. When six imposts
were levied for crossing a single duchy, the cost of
importing the cheaper goods must have been pro-
hibitory.
The Italian caravans reached Champagne ordinarily
by two routes : one by some Alpine pass to Geneva,
and then through Burgundy ; the other by water to
Marseilles or Aigues-Mortes, up the Rhone to Lyons,
and north, substantially as before. The towns of
Provins, Troyes, Bar-sur-Aube, and Lagny-sur-Marne
lie about midway between Bruges and Ypres on the
one side, and Lyons and Geneva on the other, and it
l 60 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
was at these cities that exchanges centralized, until
the inttoduction of the mariner’s compass caused
traffic to go by the ocean, and made Antwerp the
monied metropolis
The market was, in reality, open continuously, for
six fairs were held, each six weeks long, and the trade
was so lucrative that places which, m 1100, had been
petty villages, in 1200 had wealth enough to build
those magnificent cathedrals which are still wonders
of the world
The communal movement had nothing about it
necessarily either liberal or democratic The in-
corporated borough was merely an instrument of
trade, and at a certain moment became practically
independent, because for a short period traders or-
ganized locally, befoie they could amalgamate into
centralized communities with a revenue sufficient to
pay a police capable of coercing individuals.
What the merchant wanted was protection for
trade, and, piovided he had it, the form m which it
came was immaterial Where the feudal government
was strong, communes did not exist : Paris never had
a charter. Conversely, where the government was
weak, communes grew up, because traders combined
for mutual protection, and therefore the communes
reached perfection in ecclesiastical capitals.
As a whole, the secular nobility rather favoured the
incorporated towns, because they could sell to them
their services as policemen, and could join with them
in plundering the Church ; 1 on their side the trades-
men were always ready to commute personal military
service into a tax, and thus both sides benefited. To
1 Les Communes Front, at ses % Luchaire, 221-225.
VI.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE
161
the Church, on the contrary, the rise of the mercantile
class was pure loss, not only because it caused their
vassals to seek better protection than ecclesiastics
could give, but because the propagation of the ma-
terialistic mind bred heresy. The clergy had no
police to sell, and the townsmen had, therefore, either
to do the work themselves or hire a secular noble.
In the one case they became substantially indepen-
dent, in the other they transferred their allegiance to
a stranger. In any event, a new fief was carved out of
an ecclesiastical lordship, and such accessions steadily
built up the royal domain.
From the outset, the sacred class seems to have
been conscious of its danger, and some of the most
ferocious wars of the Middle Ages were those waged
upon ecclesiastical serfs who tried to organize for
self-defence. In one of his books Luchaire has told,
at length, the story of the massacre of the peasantry
of the Laonnais by a soldier whom the chapter of
Laon elected bishop for the purpose, 1 and this was
but a single case out of hundreds. Hardly a bishop
or an abbot lived at peace with his vassals, and, as the
clergy were the natural prey of the secular nobility,
the barons often sided with the populace, and used
the burghers as an excuse for private war. A speech
made by one of the Counts of Nevers, during a rising
of the inhabitants of Vezelay, gives a good idea of the
intrigues which kept the prelates in perpetual misery.
“ 0 very illustrious men, celebrated for great wisdom,
valiant by your strength and rich by the riches you have
acquired by your own merit, I am deeply afflicted at the
1 Les Communes Francises, Luchaire, 85.
1 62 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP.
miserable condition to which you are reduced. Apparently
the possessors of much, in reality you are masters of nothing ,
and more than this, you do not enjoy any portion of your
natuial liberty. . . If I think on these things I am greatly
astonished, and ask myself what has become of, or rather to
what depth of cowardice has fallen within you, that vigour
formerly so renowned, when you put to death your Lord, the
abbot Artaud.”
The count then dwelt upon the harshness of the
living abbot, and ended thus : —
u Separate from this man, and bind yourselves to me by a
mutual agreement if you consent, I engage myself to free
you from all exactions, from all illegal rentals, and to defend
you from the evils which are ready to fall upon you .” 1
Wherever developed, the mercantile mind had
always the same characteristic: it was unimaginative,
and, being unimaginative, it doubted the utility of
magic. Accordingly, all commercial communities
have rebelled against paying for miracles, and it was
the spread of a scepticism already well developed
in the thirteenth century among the manufacturing
towns, which caused the Reformation of the six-
teenth. At Saint-Riquier the monks carried the relics
of Saint Vigor each year in procession. In 1264 the
burghers took a dead cat and put it in a shrine, while
in another casket they placed a horse-bone, to do
service as the arm of Saint Vigor, When the pro-
cession reached a certain spot, the reliquaries were
set down, and a mock fight began between two mum-
mers. Then the bearers cried out, “Old Saint Rlquier,
you shall go no further unless you reconcile these
1 Lis Communes Franfaises > Luchaire, 233-234.
VI
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 163
enemies,” whereupon the combatants fell into each
other's arms, and all cried out that Saint Riquier had
wrought a miracle.
Afterward they built a chapel and oratory, with an
altar draped with cloth of gold, and deposited the
dead cat and the horse-bone , and simple pilgrims,
ignorant of the sacrilege, stopped to worship the
relics, the mayor and council aiding and abetting
the crime, “to the detriment of the whole Church
universal.” 1
The clergy retaliated with frightful ferocity As
heresy followed in the wake of trade, the Inquisition
followed in the wake of heresy, and the beginning of
the thirteenth century witnessed simultaneously the
prosperity of the mercantile class and the organization
of the Holy Office.
Jacques de Vitry breathed the ecclesiastical spirit.
One of the most famous preachers of his age, he rose
from a simple monk to be Cardinal-bishop of Tus-
culum, legate in France, and Patriarch of Jerusalem
He led a crusade against the Albigenses, was present
at the siege of Damietta, and died at Rome in 1240.
His sermons burn with his hatred of the bourgeoisie :
“That detestable race of men . . , hurrying to meet
its fate, which none or few could escape,” all of whom
“were making haste toward hell . . . But above all
other evils of these Babylonish cities, there is one
which is the worst, for hardly is there a community
to be found in which there are not abettors, receivers,
defenders of, or believers in, heretics.” 2
1 Les Communes Francises, Luchaire, 260.
2 Documents sur les delations de la Royaute avec les Villes de
France , Giry, 59, 61.
1 64 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
The basis of the secular society of the early Middle *
Ages was individual physical force. Every layman,
noble or seif, owed military service, and when a bor-
ough was incorporated, it took its place in the feudal
hierarchy, like any other vassal. With the spread of
the meicantile type, however, a change began — the
transmutation of physical force into money — and this
process went on until individual strength or courage
ceased to have importance.
As soldiers the burgesses never excelled , citizen
troops have seldom been formidable, and those of
the communes rarely withstood the first onset of the
enemy. The tradesmen themselves recognized their
own limitations, and in 1317 the deputies of the cities
met at Paris and requested the government to under-
take the administration of the local militia.
Though unwarlike, the townsmen were wealthy,
and, in the reign of Philip Augustus, the same cause
which led to the consolidation of the kingdom, brought
about, as Luchaire has pointed out, “a radical modifi-
cation of the military and financial organization of
the monarchy ; ” the substitution by the privileged
corporations of money payments for personal service 1
Thus, from the time when the economic type had
multiplied sufficiently to hire a police, the strength
of the State came to depend on its revenue, and
financiers grew to be the controlling element of civil-
ization. Before the crusades, the high offices of the
kingdom of France, such as the office of the sen-
eschal, were not only held by nobles, but tended to
become hereditary in certain warlike families After
the rise of the Eastern trade the royal council was
1 Zes Communes Francises, Luchaire, 189.
VI. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 165
captured by the bourgeoisie. Jacques Coeur is a
striking specimen of the class which ruled in the
fifteenth century. Of this class the lawyers were
the spokesmen, and men like Flotte and Nogaret,
the chancellors of Philip the Fair, expressed the
notion of centralization as perfectly as the jurists of
ancient Rome No one has understood the move-
ment better than Luchaire. He has pointed out, in
his work on French institutions, that from the begin-
ning of the reign of Saint Louis (1226) the Privy
Council steadily gained in consequence 1 The perma-
nent civil service, of which it was the core, served as
a school for judges, clerks, seneschals, and all judicial
and executive officers. At first the administration
retained a strong clerical tinge, probably because a
generation elapsed before laymen could be equally
well trained for the work, but after the accession of
Philip the Fair, toward the end of the century, the
laymen decisively predominated, and when they pre-
dominated, the plunder of the Church began.
Abstract justice is, of course, impossible Law is
merely the expression of the will of the strongest for
the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity,
but shift from generation to generation. When the
imagination is vivid and police weak, emotional or
ecclesiastical law prevails. As competition sharpens,
and the movement of society accelerates, religious
ritual is supplanted by civil codes for the enforce-
ment of contracts and the protection of the creditor
class.
The more society consolidates the more legisla-
tion is controlled by the wealthy, and at length the
1 Manuel des Institutions Franfatses, Luchaire, 535.
1 66
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
representatives of the monied class acquire that abso-
lute power once wielded by the Roman proconsul,
and now exercised by the modern magistrate.
“The two great figures of Saint Louis and of Philip the
Fair which dominate the third period are profoundly unlike.
But considering the facts as a whole . . . [they] have
but moderately influenced the direction of the communal
development. With the bailiffs and Parliament the mon-
archical machine is in possession of its essential works , it
operates and will stop no more. In vain the kmg shall
essay to arrest its march, or to direct it in another course :
the innumerable army of agents of the crown does not cease
for a moment to destroy rival jurisdictions, to suppress
embarrassing powers, to replace everywhere private jurisdic-
tions by the single authority of the sovereign.
“To the infinite diversity of local liberties its will is to
substitute regularity of institutions ; political and administra-
tive centralization ,” 1
As Luchaire has elsewhere observed, the current
everywhere " substituted, in the paths of administra-
tion, justice, and finance, the lay and burgher for the
ecclesiastical and noble element.” In other words,
the economic type steadily gained ground, and the
process went on until the Revolution. Saint Simon
never forgave Louis XIV. for surrounding himself
with men of mean birth, dependent on his will.
“The Duke of Beauvilliers was the single example in the
whole course of his reign, as has been remarked in speaking
of this duke, the only nobleman who was admitted into his
council between the death of Cardinal Mazarin and his own;
that is to say, during fifty-four years.” 2
* Les Communes Fra uluses, Luchaire, 283
2 Memoir es du Due de Samt- Simon, ed. 1874, xii. 19.
vi. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 1 67
From the middle of the twelfth to the middle of
the thirteenth century was an interval of almost un-
paralleled commercial prosperity — a prosperity which
is sufficiently proved by the sumptuous quality of
the architecture of the time. Unquestionably the
most magnificent buildings of modern Europe date
from this period, and this prosperity was not limited
to any country, but extended from Cairo to London.
Such an expansion of trade would have been impos-
sible without a corresponding expansion of the cur-
rency, and as no new mines were discovered, recourse
was had to paper By the year 1200 bills of ex-
change had been introduced, 1 and in order to give
the bill of exchange its greatest circulating power,
a system of banking was created which operated as
a universal clearing house, and by means of which
these bills were balanced against each other
In the thirteenth century, Florence, Genoa, and
Venice were the chief monied centres. In these
cities the purchase and sale of commercial paper
was, at the outset, monopolized by a body of money-
changers, who, m Venice at least, seem to have been
controlled by the council of merchants, and who
probably were not always in the best credit. At all
events, they were required in 1318 to make a deposit
of ^3,000 as security for their customers, and after-
ward the amount was increased 2 Possibly some
such system of deposits may have originally formed
the capital of the Bank of Venice, but everything
relating to the organization of the mediaeval banks
is obscure. All that seems certain is, that business
1 Le Commerce de Marseille au Moyen Age , Blancard, 3.
a La Liberth delle Banche a Venezia, Lattes, 26.
1 68
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
was conducted by establishments of this character
long before the date of any records which now re-
main. Amidst the multiplicity of mediaeval juris-
dictions, not only did the currency become involved
in inextricable confusion, but it generally was de-
based through abrasion and clipping Before clear-
ings could be conveniently made, therefore, a coinage
of recognized value had to be provided, and this
the banks undertook to supply by their system of
deposits. They received coin fresh from the mints,
for which they gave credits, and these credits or
notes were negotiable, and were always to be bought
in the maiket. The deposits themselves were seldom
withdrawn, as they bore a premium over common
currency, which they lost when put in circulation,
and they were accordingly only tiansfeired on the
books of the coiporatums, to coriespond with the
sales of the notes which xepiesented them. Thus
merchants from all parts of Europe and the Levant
could draw on Venice or Genoa, and have their bal-
ances settled by transfers of deposits at the banks,
without the intervention of coin. A calculation has
been made that, by this means, the effective power
of the currency was multiplied tenfold Of all these
institutions, the corporations of Genoa and Venice
were the most famous. The Bank of Saint George,
at Genoa, was formally organized in 1407, but it
undoubtedly had conducted business from the begin-
ning of the twelfth century , 1 next to nothing is
known of the development at Venice Probably,
however, Florence was more purely a monied centre
than either Venice or Genoa, and no money-lenders
1 Les Grandes Compagnies de Commerce, Bonnassieux, 23.
VI
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 169
of the Middle Ages ever equalled the great Floren-
tine banking families. Most of the important com-
mercial centres came to have institutions of the kind
The introduction of credit had the same effect as
a large addition to the stock of bullion, and, as gold
and silver grew more plentiful, their relative value
fell, and a general reform of the currency took place.
Venice began the movement with the grosso, it spread
through Italy and into France, and the com of Saint
Louis was long considered as perfect money.
With the expansion of the currency went a rise
in prices, all producers grew rich, and, for more than
two generations, the strain of competition was so
relaxed that the different classes of the population
preyed upon each other less savagely than they are
wont to do in less happy times.
Meanwhile no considerable additions were made
to the volume of the precious metals, and, as the
bulk of commerce swelled, the capacity of the new
system of credit became exhausted, and contraction
set in. The first symptom of disorder seems to have
been a rise in the purchasing power of both the pre-
cious metals, but particularly of gold, which rose in
its ratio to silver from about one to nine and a half,
to one to twelve . 1 At the same time the value of
commodities, even when measured m silver, appears
to have fallen sharply . 2 The consequence of this fall
was a corresponding addition to the burden of debt,
and a very general insolvency. The communes had
been large borrowers, and their straits were deplor-
1 Le Rapport entre l 1 or et V argent au Temps de Saint Louis, Marche*
ville, 22, 33.
2 Ibid,, 42.
170
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
able. Luchaire has desciibecl their condition as
shown “in the municipal accounts addressed by the
communes to the government.” 1 Everywhere there
was a deficit, almost everywhere ruin Amiens,
Soissons, Roye, Saint Quentin, and Rouen were all
in difficulty with then loans, but Noyon was perhaps
the worst of all. In 1278 Noyon owed 16,000 pounds
which it was unable to pay After a suspension for
fourteen years the king issued an ordinance regu-
lating liquidation , a part of the claims had to be
cancelled, and the balance collected by a levy on
private property. The bankruptcy was complete.
The royal government, equally hardly pressed, was
unable to meet its obligations in the standard coin,
and resorted to debasement. Under Saint Louis
the mark of silver yielded but 2 pounds 15 sous 6
pence; in 1306 the same weight of metal was cut
into 8 pounds 10 sous. The pressure upon the pop-
ulation was terrible, and led to terrible results — the
beginning of the spoliation of the emotionalists.
Perhaps the combination of the two great forces
of the age, of the soldier and the monk, was the
supreme effort of the emotional mind. What a hold
the dazzling dream of omnipotence, through the pos-
session of the Sepulchre, had upon the twelfth cen-
tury, can be measured by the gifts showered upon the
crusading orders, for they represented a prodigious
sacrifice.
At Paris the Temple had a capital city over against
the capital of the king. Within a walled enclosure
of sixty thousand square metres, stood the conventual
buildings and a gigantic donjon of such perfect
1 Les Communes Francises t 300 , 201 .
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE
VL
171
masonry that it never needed other repairs than
the patching of its roof. Beyond the walls the do-
main extended to the Seine, a property which, even
in 1300, had an almost incalculable value.
On every Eastern battle-field, and at every assault
and siege, the knights had fought with that fiery
courage which has made their name a proverb down
to the present day In 1265, at Safed, three hun-
dred had been butchered upon the ramparts in cold
blood, rather than renounce their faith. At Acre,
whose loss sealed the fate of Palestine, they held
the keep at all odds until the donjon fell, burying
Christians and Moslems m a common grave. But
skill and valour avail nothing against nature. Step
by step the Templars had been driven back, until
Tortosa surrendered in 1291 Then the Holy Land
was closed, the enthusiasm which had generated the
order had passed away, and, meanwhile, economic
competition had bred a new race at home, to which
monks were a predestined prey.
In 1285, as the Latin kingdom in Syiia was totter-
ing towards its fall, Philip the Fair was crowned,
Subtle, sceptical, treacherous, and cruel, few kings
have left behind them a more sombre memory, yet
he was the incarnation of the economic spirit in its
conflict with the Church. Nine years later Benedetto
Gaetam was elected pope : a man as completely the
creation of the social revolution of the thirteenth
century as Philip himself. Trained at Bologna and
Paris, a jurist rather than a priest, his faith m dogma
was so scanty that his belief in the immortality of
the soul has been questioned. A thorough world-
ling, greedy, ambitious, and unscrupulous, he was
172
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
suspected of having murdered his predecessor, Celes-
tm V.
When Boniface came to the throne, the Church is
supposed to have owned about one-third of the soil
of Europe, and on this property the governments had
no means of enforcing regular taxation. Toward the
close of the thirteenth century the fall of prices in-
creased the weight of debt, while it diminished the
power of the population to pay. On the other hand,
as the system of administration became more com-
plex, the cost of government augmented, and at last
the burden became more than the laity could endure.
Both England and France had a permanent deficit,
and Edward and Philip alike turned toward the clergy
as the only source of supply. Both kings met with
opposition, but the explosion came in France, where
Clauvaux, the most intractable of convents, appealed
to Rome.
Boniface had been elected by a coalition between
the Colonna and the Orsini factions, but after his coro-
nation he turned upon the Colonnas, who, in revenge,
plundered his treasure. A struggle followed, which
ended fatally to the pope ; but at first he had the
advantage, sacked their city of Prseneste, and forced
them to fly to France. On the brink of this war,
Boniface was in no condition to rouse so dangerous
an adversary as Philip, and, in answer to Clairvaux’s
appeal, he confined himself to excommunicating the
prince who should tax the priest and the priest who
should pay the impost.
Nevertheless, the issue had to be met. The Church
had weakened as terror of the unknown had waned,
and could no longer defend its wealth, which was
VI
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE
173
destined to pass more and more completely into the
hands of the laity.
Philip continued his aggressions, and, when peace
had been established in Italy, the rupture came. Not
realizing his impotence, and exasperated at the royal
policy, Boniface sent Bernard de Saisset, Bishop of
Pamiers, to Paris as his ambassador. Bernard had
recently been consecrated in defiance of Philip, and
they were bitter enemies He was soon dismissed
from court, but he continued his provocations, calling
the king a false coiner and a blockhead, and when he
returned to Pamiers he plotted an insurrection. He
was arrested and prosecuted by the Chancellor Flotte,
but when delivered to the Archbishop of Narbonne
for degradation, action was suspended to await the
sanction of Rome Then Flotte was sent to Italy to
demand the surrender “of the child of perdition/'
that Philip might make of him “ an excellent sacrifice
to God." The mission necessarily failed, for it was
a struggle for supremacy, and the issue was well
summed up in the final words of the stormy inter-
view which brought it to a close. “ My power, the
spiritual power," cried Boniface, “embraces and
encloses the temporal" “True," retorted Flotte,
“but yours is verbal, the king’s is real."
An ecclesiastical council was convoked for Octo-
ber, 1302, and Philip was summoned to appear before
the greatest prelates of Christendom. But, not wait-
ing the meeting of this august assembly, Boniface,
on December 5, 1301, launched his famous bull,
“Ausculta, fili," which was his declaration of war. 1
1 The documents relating to the controversy are printed m the His-
toire du Differ end, Dupuy.
174
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
Listen, my son : do not persuade yourself that you
have no superior, and are not in subjection to the
head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy . he who says
this is mad, he who sustains it is an infidel. You
devour the revenues of the vacant bishoprics, you
pillage chinches, I do not speak now of the altera-
tions in the coinage, and of the other complaints
which arise on all sides, and which cry to us against
you, but not to make myself accountable to God for
your soul, I summon you to appear before me, and in
case of your refusal shall render judgment in your
absence, 1
A century before, the barons of France had aban-
doned Philip Augustus, through fear of the incanta-
tions of Innocent, but, m the third generation of the
commercial type, such fears had been discarded. In
Apiil, 1302, the estates of the realm sustained the
“ little one-eyed heretic/' as Boniface called Flotte,
in burning the papal bull, and in answering the admo-
nitions of the pope with mockery.
“ Philip, by the grace of God king of the French, to Boni-
face, who calls himself sovereign pontiff, little greeting or
none. Let your very great foolishness know that we are
subject to no one for the temporally ; that the collation to
the vacant churches and prebends belongs to us by royal
right ; that their fruits are ours ; that collations which have
been made, or are to be made by us, are valid for the past
and for the future, and that we will manfully protect their
possessors against all comers. Those who think otherwise
we hold fools or madmen.” 2
The accepted theory long was that the bourgeoisie
were neutral in this quarrel; that they were an insig-
1 Dupuy, 48. 8 JM n 44.
vi THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 175
nificant factor in the state, and obeyed passively
because they were without the power to oppose. In
reality, consolidation had already gone so far that
money had become the prevailing form of force in
the kingdom of France , therefore the monied class
was on the whole the strongest class, and Flotte was
their mouthpiece. They accepted the papers drawn
by the chancellor, because the chancellor was their
representative 1
In July, 1302, Philip met with the defeat of Cour-
tray, and the tone of the ecclesiastical council, con-
vened m October, shows that the clergy thought his
power broken. A priest relies upon the miracle, and,
if defied, he must either conquer by supernatural aid,
or submit to secular coercion. Boniface boldly faced
the issue, and planted himself by Hildebrand. In his
bull, Unam Sanctam, he defined his claim to the im-
plicit obedience of laymen.
“ We are provided, under his authority, with two swords,
the temporal and the spiritual; . . ♦ both, therefore, are
in the power of the Church, to wit, the spiritual and the
material sword : the one is to be used by the priest,
the other by kings and soldiers , sed ad nutum et patientiam
sacerdotis.” 2
A sentence of excommunication had also been pre-
pared and sent to France, which was to have been
followed by deposition ; but when it arrived, Philip
convened an assembly of prelates and barons at the
Louvre, and presented an indictment against Boniface,
probably without a parallel in modern history. The
1 See letters of Beauvais and Laon, of 1303, Documents t Giry, 160.
2 Dupny, 55.
176
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
pope was accused of every crime He was an infidel,
a denier of the immoitality of the soul, a scoffer at
the eucharist, a murderer, and a sorcerer He was
guilty of unnatural crimes and of robbery 1
The bearer of the bull was arrested, the property
of the bishops who had attended the council seques-
tered, and Philip prepared to seize Boniface m his
own palace Boniface, too, felt the decisive hour at
hand He tried to reconcile himself with his ene-
mies, drew the bull of deposition, and prepared to
affix it to the church door at Anagni on Septem-
ber 8, 1303 Before the day came he was a pris-
oner, and face to face with death
Flotte had been killed at Courtiay, and had been
succeeded by the redoubtable Nogaret, whose grand-
father was believed to have been burned as a heretic.
With Nogaiet Philip joined Sciarra Colonna, the
bloodiest of the Italian nobles, and sent them to-
gether to Italy to deal with his foe. Boniface had
made war upon the Colonnas, and Sciarra had been
hunted like a wild beast. Flying disguised, he had
been taken by pirates, and had preferred to toil four
years as a galley-slave, rather than run the risk of
ecclesiastical mercy by surrendering himself to the
vicar of Christ. At last Philip heard of his misfor-
tunes, bought him, and, at the crisis, let him slip like
a mad dog at the old man’s throat. Nogaret and
Colonna succeeded in corrupting the governor of
Anagni, and entered the town at dead of night , but
the pope’s nephews had time to barricade the streets,
and it was not until the church, which communicated
with the papal apartments, had been fired, that the
1 Dupuy, 351. Articles presented June, 1303.
VI.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE
177
palace was forced. There, it was said, they found
the proud old priest sitting upon his throne, with his
crown upon his head, and men whispered that, as he
sat there, Colonna struck him in the face with his
gauntlet.
Probably the story was false, but it reflected truly
enough the spirit of the pope’s captors He himself
believed them capable of poisoning him, for from
Saturday night till Monday morning he lay without
food or drink, and when liberated was exhausted.
Boniface was eighty-six, and the shock killed him.
He was taken to Rome, and died there of fever, ac-
cording to the rumour, blaspheming, and gnawing
his hands in frenzy . 1
The death of Boniface was decisive Benedict XI.,
who succeeded him, did not attempt to prolong the
contest ; but peace without surrender was impossible.
The economic classes held the emotionalists by the
throat, and strangled them till they disgorged
Vainly Benedict revoked the acts of his prede-
cessor. Philip demanded that Boniface should be
branded as a heretic, and sent Nogaret to Rome as
his ambassador. The insult was more than the
priesthood could yet endure. Summoning his cour-
age, Benedict excommunicated Nogaret, Colonna, and
thirteen others, whom he had seen break into the
palace at Anagni. Within a month he was dead.
Poison was whispered, and, for the first time since
the monks captured the papacy, the hierarchy was
paralyzed by fear No complaint was made, or pur-
suit of the criminal attempted ; the consistory met,
but failed to unite on a successor.
1 See Cromca di Viliam, vui. 63.
N
178
CIVILIZATION AND DECA’i
CHA t
According to the legend, when the cardinals were
unable to agree, the faction opposed to Philip con
sented to name three candidates, from whom the king
should select the pope. The pi elate he chose was
Bertrand de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux. Boniface
had been his patron, but Philip, who knew men, knew
that this man had his price. The tale goes that the
king visited the bishop at an abbey near Samt-Jean-
d’Ang&y, and began the conversation as follows*
“ My lord Archbishop, I have that m my hand will
make you pope if I like, and it is for that I am
come ” Bertrand fell on his knees, and the king
imposed five conditions, reserving a sixth, to exact
thereafter The last condition was the condemna-
tion of the Templars 1
Doubtless the picturesque old tale is as false in
detail as it is true in spirit Probably no such inter-
view took place, and yet there seems little doubt that
Clement owed his election to Philip, and gave pledges
which bound him ftom the day of his coronation.
Certainly he surrendered all liberty of action, for he
established himself at Avignon, whence the battle-
ments of Ville-Neuve can still be seen, built by
Philip to overawe the town. Within an hour he
could have filled the streets with his mercenaries.
The victory was complete. The Church was pros-
trate, and spoliation began.
Clement was crowned m 1305, and after two years
of slavery he began to find his compact heavy upon
him. He yielded up the patronage, he consented to
the taxation of the clergy, and he ordered the grand-
1 Cronica di ¥illani % viii, 80. Als»o Ann, EccL % Baromus, year
*305.
VI.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE
179
masters of the crusading orders to return to Europe,
all at Philip's bidding. But when he was commanded
to condemn Boniface as a heretic, he recoiled in
terror. Indeed, to have rejected Boniface as an im-
postor, and a false pope, would have precipitated
chaos. His bishops and cardinals would have been
set aside, Clement's own election would have been
invalidated; none could foresee where the disorgan-
ization would end To gain time, Clement pleaded
for a general council, which the king morosely con-
ceded, but only on the condition that the excom-
munications against his agents, even against Nogaret,
should be withdrawn Clement assented, for he was
practically a prisoner at Poitiers, a council at Vienne
was agreed to, and the Crown seized the Templars
without opposition from the Church.
Criticism has long ago dispelled the mystery which
once shrouded this bloody process. No historian
now suggests that the knights were really guilty of
the fantastic enormities charged against them, and
which they confessed under torture Scepticism
doubtless was rife among them, as it was among
the cardinals, but there is nothing to show that the
worst differed materially from the population about
them, and the superb fortitude with which they
perished, demonstrates that lack of religious enthu-
siasm was not the crime for which they died.
When Philip conceived the idea of first murdering
and then plundering the crusaders, is uncertain.
Some have thought it was in 1306, while sheltered
in the Temple, when, he having suddenly raised his
debased money to the standard of Saint Louis, the
mob destroyed the house of his master of the mint
I SO CIVILIZATION AND DECAY ch\p.
Probably it was much earlier, and was but the neces-
sary result of the sharpening* of economic competi-
tion, which began with the accelerated movement
accompanying the crusades.
After Clements election, several years elapsed be-
fore the scheme ripened. Nothing could be done
until one or both of the grand-masters had been en-
ticed to France with their treasure Under pretence
of preparing for a new crusade this was finally
accomplished, and, m 1306, Jacques de Molay, a
chivalrous Burgundian gentleman, journeyed unsus-
pectingly to Paris, taking with him his chief officers
and one hundred and fifty thousand floiins in gold,
beside silver “ enough to load ten mules ”
Philip first borrowed all the money de Molay would
lend, and then, at one sudden swoop, arrested in a
single night all the Templars in PYance. On Octo-
ber 13, 1307, the seizure was made, and Philip’s
organization was so perfect, and his agents so reli-
able, that the plan was executed with precision
The object of the government was plunder, but
before the goods of the order could be confiscated,
legal conviction of some crime was necessary, which
would entail forfeiture. Heresy was the only accusa-
tion adapted to the purpose ; accordingly Philip de-
termined to convict the knights of heresy, and the
best evidence was confession. To extort confession
the Inquisition had to be set in motion by the pope,
and thus it came to pass that, in order to convey to
the laymen the property of ecclesiastics, Christ's sol-
diers were tormented to death by his own vicar.
In vain, in the midst of the work, Clement, in
agonies of remorse, revoked the commissions of the
VI. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE l8l
inquisitors. Philip jeered when the cardinals deliv-
ered the message, saying “ that God hated the luke-
warm, ” and the torture went on as before. When he
had extorted what he needed, he set out for Poitiers ;
Clement fled, but was arrested and brought back a
prisoner. Then his resolution gave way, and he
abandoned the knights to their fate, reserving only
the grand-master and a few high officials for himself.
Still, though he forsook the individuals, he could not
be terrified into condemning the order m its corpo-
rate capacity, and the final process was referred to
the approaching council Meanwhile, a commission,
presided over by the Archbishop of Narbonne, pro-
ceeded with the trial of the knights.
For three years these miserable wretches lan-
guished m their dungeons, and the imagination re-
coils from picturing their torments Finally Philip
felt that an end must be made, and in March, 1310,
546 of the survivors were taken from their prisons
and made to choose delegates, for their exasperation
was so deep that the government feared to let them
appear before the court in a body.
The precaution availed little, for the knights who
conducted the common defence proved themselves as
proud and bold in this last extremity of human mis-
ery, as they had ever been upon the day of battle
They denied the charges brought against them, they
taunted their judges with the lies told them to induce
them to confess, and they showed how life and liberty
had been promised them, under the royal seal, if they
would admit the allegations of the government. Then
they told the story of those who had been steadfast
to the end.
182
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
“ It is not astonishing that some have borne false witness,
but that any have told the truth, considering the sorrows
and suffering, the threats and insults, they daily endure. . . .
What is surprising is that faith should be given to those who
have testified untruly to save their bodies, rather than to
those who have died in their tortures in such numbers, like
martyrs of Christ, in defence of the truth, or who solely for
conscience sake, have suffered and still daily suffer in their
prisons, so many torments, trials, calamities, and miseries,
for this cause .*’ 1
The witnesses called confirmed their statements.
Bernard Peleti, when examined, was asked if he had
been put to the torture. He replied that for three
months previous to his confession to the Bishop of
Paris, he had lain with his hands so tightly bound
behind his back that the blood started from his fin-
ger nails. He had beside been put in a pit Then
he broke out: “If I am tortured I shall deny all I
have said now, and shall say all they want me to say.
If the time be short, I can bear to be beheaded, or to
die by boiling water, or by fire, for the honour of the
order; but I can no longer withstand the torments
which, for more than two years, I have endured in
prison.” 2
“ I have been tortured three times,” said Humbert
de Podio. “ I was confined thirty-six weeks in a
tower, on bread and water, quia non confitebatur quae
valebant .” 8 Bernard de Vado showed two bones
which had dropped from his heels after roasting his
feet 4
1 Documents Inedits sm VBistoire de France, Proch des Temp hers,
Michelet, i. *66.
3 Proch des Temphers , Michelet, u 37,
* Ibid., 264.
4 Ibid., 75.
VI.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 1 83
Such testimony was disregarded, for condemnation
was necessary as a preliminary to confiscation. The
suppression of the Temple was the first step in that
long spoliation of the Church which has continued to
the present day, and which has been agonizing to the
victims in proportion to their power of resistance.
The fourteenth century was still an age of faith, and
the monks died hard Philip grasped the situation
with the intuition of genius, and provided himself
with an instrument fit for the task before him. He
forced Clement to raise Philip de Marigni to the See
of Sens, and Marigni was a man who shrank from
nothing.
When made archbishop, he convoked a provincial
council at Paris, and condemned, as relapsed heretics,
the knights who had repudiated their confessions.
Fifty-nine of these knights belonged to his own
diocese. He had them brought to a fenced enclosure
in a field near the Abbey of Saint Antoine, and there
offered them pardon if they would recant. Then
they were chained to stakes, and slowly burned to
ashes from the feet upward Not one flinched, but
amidst shrieks of anguish, when half consumed, they
protested their innocence, and died imploring mercy
Of Christ and of the Virgin . 1
Devotion so superb might have fired the imagina-
tion of even such a craven as Clement, but Philip
was equal to the emergency. He had caused scores
of witnesses to be examined to prove that Boniface
was a murderer, a sorcerer, a debauchee, and a here-
tic. Suddenly he offered to drop the prosecution,
and to restore the Temple lands to the Church, if
1 Cromca di Viliam, viii, 92,
184
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHA?
the order might be abolished and the process closed.
Clement yielded In October, 131 1, the council met
at Vienne, The winter was spent in intimidation
and bnbery; the second meeting was not held until
the following April, and then the decree of suppres-
sion was published. By this decree the corporation
was dissolved, but certain of the higher officers still
lived, and in an evil moment Clement bethought him
of their fate. In December, 1313, he appointed a
commission to try them. They weie brought before
a lofty scaffold at the portal of the Cathedial of Pans,
and there made to reiterate the avowals which had
been wrung from them in their dungeons Then
they were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. But
at this supreme moment, when it seemed that all was
over, cle Molay, the grand-master, and the Master of
Normandy, broke into a furious defence. The com-
missioners adjourned in a panic, but Philip, thirsting
for blood, sprang upon his prey
He gave his oulers to his own officers, without
consulting any prelate On Match 18, 1314, as night
fell, the two crusaders were taken from the provost,
who acted as their gaoler, and carried to a little island
in the Seine, on which a statue of Henry of Navarre
now stands. There they were bin ned together, with-
out a trial and without a sentence. They watched
the building of their funeral pile with “hearts so
firm and resolute, and persisted with such constancy
in their denials to the end, and suffered death with
such composure, that they left the witnesses of their
execution in admiration and stupor ” x
An ancient legend told how de Molay, as he stood
* Conti nuaiio Cfoonhi Guiletmi dt Nangiaco, mcccxiii.
VI. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 1 85
upon his blazing fagots, summoned Clement to meet
him before God’s judgment-seat m forty days, and
Philip within a year. Neither survived the interval.
Philip had promised to restore the goods of the
Temple to the Church, but the plunder, for which
this tremendous deed was done, was not surrendered
tamely to the vanquished after their defeat The
gold and silver, and all that could be stolen, dis-
appeared The land was in the end ceded to the
Hospital, but so wasted that, for a century, no reve-
nue whatever accrued from what had been one of
the finest conventual estates in Europe 1
Such was the opening of that social revolution
which, when it reached its height, was called the
Reformation.
1 La Matson du Temple, Curzon, 200, 204.
CHAPTER VII
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
Many writers have pointed out the relation be-
tween commerce and scepticism in the Middle Ages,
and, among others, Thorold Rogers has a passage
in his History of Agriculture and Prices so interest-
ing that it should be read entire: —
“The general spread of Lollardy, about which all the
theologians of the age complain, was at once the cause
and the effect of progressive opulence. It cannot be by
accident that all the wealthiest parts of Europe, one district
only excepted, and that for very sufficient reasons, were sus-
pected during the Middle Ages of theological nonconformity.
Before the campaigns of Simon de Montfort, in the first half
of the thirteenth century, Provence was the garden and
workshop of Europe. The sturdiest advocates of the Ref-
ormation were the burghers of the Low Countries. . . .
In England the strength of the Lollard party was, from
the days of Wikhf to the days of Cranmer, m Norfolk
[the principal manufacturing county]; and I have no doubt
that . . . the presence of students from this district must
have told on the theological bias of Cambridge University,
which came out markedly at the epoch of the Reforma-
tion. . . .
" English Lollardy was, like its direct descendant Puritan-
ism, sour and opinionative, but it was also moral and thrifty.
They who denounced the lazy and luxurious life of the
monks, the worldlmess and greed of the prelates, and the
i86
chap, vn, THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 1 87
gross and shallow artifices of the popular religion, were pretty
sure to inculcate parsimony and saving. By voluntarily and
sturdily cutting themselves off from the circumstance of the
old faith, they were certain, like the Quakers of more than
two centuries later, to become comparatively wealthy. They
had nothing to spare for monk or priest. . . 1
The Lollards were of the modern economic type,
and discarded the miracle because the miracle was
costly and yielded an uncertain return. Yet the
mediaeval cult was based upon the miracle, and many
of the payments due for the supernatural services of
the ecclesiastics were obligatory ; beside, gifts as an
atonement for sin were a drain on savings, and the
economist instinctively sought cheaper methods of
propitiation.
In an age as unscientific as the sixteenth century,
the conviction of the immutability of natural laws
was not strong enough to admit of the abrogation
of religious formulas The monied class, therefore,
proceeded step by step, and its first experiment was
to suppress all fees to middle-men, whether priests
or saints, by becoming their own intercessors with
the Deity.
As Dr. Witherspoon has observed, “ fear of wrath
from the avenger of blood ” made men “fly to the
city of refuge 2 but, as the tradesman replaced the
enthusiast, a dogma was evolved by which mental
anguish, which cost nothing, was substituted for the
offering which was effective in proportion to its money
value. This dogma was “Justification by Faith,” the
corner-stone of Protestantism.
1 A History of Agncultui e and Prtces ) J E. Thorold Rogers, iv. 72.
2 On Justification , , Works, 1. 60
1 83 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap
Far from requiring an outlay fiom the elect, “Jus-
tification by Faith” discouraged it The act con-
sisted m “a deep humiliation of mind, confession
of guilt and wretchedness . and acceptance of
pardon and peace through Christ Jesus, which they
have neither conti ibuted to the procuring, nor can
contribute to the continuance of, by their own
merit ” 1
Yet the substitution of a mental condition for a
money payment, led to consequences more far-reach-
ing than the suppression of certain clerical revenues,
for it involved the rejection of the sacrecl tradition
which had not only sustained relic worship, but which
had made the Church the channel of communication
between Christians and the invisible world.
That ancient channel once closed, Protestants had
to open another, and this led to the deification of the
Bible, which, before the Reformation, had been sup-
posed to derive its authority from that divine illumi-
nation which had enabled the priesthood to infallibly
declare the canon of the sacred books, Calvin saw
the weak spot in the position of the reformers, and
faced it boldly. He maintained the Scripture to be
u self-authenticated, carrying with it its own evidence,
and ought not to be made the subject of demonstra-
tion and arguments from reason,” and that it should
obtain “ the same complete credit and authority with
believers ... as if they heard the very words pro-
nounced by God himself ,” 2
Thus for the innumerable costly fetishes of the
imaginative age were substituted certain writings,
1 On Justifiiahon , Works, i, 51 .
2 Institutes^ I. vii, 1 and 5 .
VII
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
189
which could be consulted without a fee The ex-
pedient was evidently the device of a mercantile
community, and the saving to those who accepted it
enormous, but it disintegrated Christendom, and made
an organized priesthood impossible. When each indi-
vidual might pry into the sacred mysteries at his
pleasure, the authority of the clergy was annihilated.
Men of the priestly type among the reformers saw
the danger and tried to save themselves. The thesis
which the early evangelical divines maintained was
the unity of truth The Scriptures were true: there-
fore if the whole body of Christians searched aright
they could not fail to draw truth from them, and this
truth must be the creed of the universal Church.
Zwingli thus explained the doctrine : —
“ Whoever hears the holy scriptures read aloud m church,
judges what he hears. Nevertheless what is heard is not it-
self the Word through which we believe. For if we believed
through the simple hearing or reading of the Word, all would
be believers On the contrary, we see that many hear and
see and do not believe. Hence it is clear that we believe
only through the word which the Heavenly Father speaks m
our hearts, by which he enlightens us so that we see, and
draws us so that we follow. . . . For God is not a God of
strife and quarrel, but of unity and peace. Where there is
true faith, there the Holy Spirit is present , but where the
Holy Spirit is, there is certainly effoit for unity and peace.
. . . Therefore there is no danger of confusion in the Church
since, if the congregation is assembled through God, he is
in the midst of them, and all who have faith strive after unity
and peace.” 1
The inference the clergy sought to draw was, that
though all could read the Bible, only the enlightened
1 Zwmghs Theologie , August Baur, 319, 320.
190 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
could interpret it, and that they alone were the
enlightened Hence Calvin’s pretensions equalled
Hildebrand’s : —
“ This is the extent of the power with which the pastors
of the Church, by whatever name they may be distinguished,
ought to be invented ; that by the word of God they may
venture to do all things with confidence; may constrain all
the strength, glory, wisdom, and pride of the world to obey
and submit to his majesty; supported by his power, may
govern all mankind, from the highest to the lowest, may
build up the house of Christ, and subvert the house of Satan ;
may feed the sheep, and drive away the wolves ; may instruct
and exhort the docile , may reprove, rebuke, and restrain the
rebellious and obstinate , may bind and loose , may discharge
their lightnings and thunders, if necessary ; but all m the
Word of God.” 1
In certain regions, poor and remote from the centres
of commerce, these pretensions were respected. In
Geneva, Scotland, and New England, men like Calvin,
Knox, and Cotton maintained themselves until econ-
omic competition did its work : then they passed
away. Nowhere has faith withstood the rise of the
mercantile class. As a whole the Reformation was
eminently an economic phenomenon, and is best
studied m England, which, after the Reformation,
grew to be the centre of the world’s exchanges.
From the beginning of modern history, commerce
and scepticism have gone hand in hand. The Eastern
trade began to revive after the reopening of the valley
of the Danube, about 1000, and perhaps, in that very
year, Berenger, the first great modern heretic, was
born. By 1050 he had been condemned and made
1 ln$ttiuie$ f IV. viii. 9.
VII.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
191
to recant, but with the growth of the Fairs of Cham-
pagne his heresy grew, and in 1215, just in the flush
of the communal development, the Church found it
necessary to define the dogma of transubstantiation,
and declare it an article of faith A geneiation later
came the burning of schismatics , in 1252, by his bull
“ Ad extirpanda,” Innocent IV. organized the Inquisi-
tion, and the next year Grosset£te, Bishop of Lincoln,
died, with whom the organized opposition of the Eng-
lish to the ancient costly ritual may be said to have
opened.
In Great Britain the agitation for reform appears
to have been practical from the outset. There was
no impatience with dogmas simply because they were
incomprehensible : the Trinity and the Double Pro-
cession were always accepted. Formulas of faith were
resisted because they involved a payment of money,
and foremost among these were masses and penances
Another grievance was the papal patronage, and, as
early as the fourteenth century, Parliament passed
the statutes of provisors and praemunire to prevent
the withdrawal of money from the realm.
The rise of the Lollards was an organized move-
ment to resist ecclesiastical exactions, and to confis-
cate ecclesiastical property ; and, if 1 345 be taken as
the opening of Wickliffe’s active life, the agitation for
the seizure of monastic estates started just a genera-
tion after Philip's attack on the Temple in France.
There was at least this difference in the industrial
condition of the two nations, and probably much
more.
Wickliffe was rather a politician than a theologian,
and his preaching a diatribe against the extravagance
192
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
of the Church. In one of his Saints' Days sermons
he explained the waste of relic worship as shrewdly
as a modern man of business : —
" It would be to the benefit of the Church, and to the
honour of the saints, if the costly ornaments so foolishly
lavished upon their graves were divided among the poor.
I am well aware, however, that the man who would sharply
and fully expose this error would be held for a manifest
heretic by the image worshippers and the greedy people
who make gam of such graves ; for m the adoration of the
eucharist, and such worshipping of dead bodies and images,
the Church is seduced by an adulterous generation .” 1
The laity paid the priesthood fees because of their
supernatural powers, and the possession of these
powers was chiefly demonstrated by the miracle of
the mass. Wickliffe, with a leader’s eye, saw where
the enemy was vulnerable, and the last years of his
life were passed in his fierce conti oversy with the
mendicants upon transubstantiation. Even at that
early day he presented the issue with incomparable
clearness : u And thou, then, that art an earthly man,
by what reason mayst thou say that thou makest thy
maker ? " 2
The deduction from such premises was inexorable
The mass had to be condemned as fetish worship, and
with it went the adoration of relics.
w Indeed, many nominal Christians are worse than pagans ;
for it is not so bad that a man should honour as God, for
the rest of the day, the first thing he sees in the morning,
1 John Wicliffe and his English Precm sors, Lechler, Eng trans.,
30 *.
* Lechler, 349, note x«
VII.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
193
as that regularly that accident should be really his God,
which he sees m the mass m the hands of the priest in the
consecrated wafer. ,, 1
Wickliffe died December 30, 1384, and ten years
later the Lollards had determined to resist all pay-
ments for magic. They presented their platform to
Parliament in 1395, summed up in their Book of Con-
clusions . Some of these “conclusions” are remark-
ably interesting : —
5th. — “That the exorcisms and hallowmgs, consecrations
and blessings, over the wine, bread, wax, water, oil, salt,
incense, the altar-stone, and about the church-walls, over
the vestment, chalice, mitre, cross, and pilgrim-staves, are
the very practices of necromancy, rather than of sacred
divinity.
7th. — “We mightily affirm . . . that spiritual prayers
made m the church for the souls of the dead ... is a false
foundation of alms, whereupon all the houses of alms in
England are falsely founded.
8th. — “That pilgrimages, prayers, and oblations made
unto blind crosses or roods, or to deaf images made either
of wood or stone, are very near of km unto idolatry ” 2
When Lord Cobham, the head of the Lollard party,
was tried for heresy in 1413, Archbishop Arundel
put him four test questions First, whether he be-
lieved, after the sacramental words had been spoken,
any material bread or wine remained in the sacra-
ment; fourth, whether he believed relic worship
meritorious
* 1 Lechler, 348, note. Extract from De Euchanstia,
a Acts and Monuments^ m. 204, 205
o
194
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
His answers did not give satisfaction, and they
roasted him in chains, in Saint Giles’s Fields, in
1418.
A hundred years of high commercial activity fol-
lowed Cobham’s death. The discovery of America,
and of the sea passage to India, changed the channels
of commerce throughout the world, human movement
was accelerated, gunpowder made the attack over-
whelming; centralization took a prodigious stride,
scepticism kept pace with centralization, and in 1510
Erasmus wrote thus, and yet remained in the ortho-
dox communion . —
“ Moreover savoureth it not of the same saulce [folly]
(trow ye) when everie countrey chalengeth a severall samet
for theyr patrone, assignyng further to each sainct a peculiar
cure and office, with also sundrie ways of worshipping ; as
this samet helpeth for the tooth-ache, that socoureth in
childbyrth ; she restoreth stolene goods; an other aydeth
shipmen in tempests ; an other taketh charge of husband-
mens hoggs , and so of the rest ; far too long were it to
reherse all. Then some saincts there be, that are generally
sued for many thynges ; amongst whom chiefly is the virgin
Mother of God, in whom vulgar folke have an especiall
confidence, yea almost more than m her Sonne.” 1
When Erasmus wrote, the Reformation was at
hand, but the attack on Church property had begun
in England full two centuries before, comtemporan-
eously with Philip’s onslaught on the Temple. All
over Europe the fourteenth century was a period of
financial distress; in France the communes became
bankrupt and the coinage deteriorated, and in Eng-
land the debasement of the currency began in 1299,
t The Praise of Fohe, 1541. Englished by Sir Thomas Challoner.
VII.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
195
and kept pace with the rise of Lollardy. In 1299
the silver penny weighed 22^ grains, Edward I.
reduced it to 22 \ grains; Edward III. to 18 grains;
Henry IV. to 15 grains; and Henry VI, during his
restoration in 1470, to 12 grams
As the stringency increased, the attack on the
clergy gained in ferocity. Edward I not only taxed
the priesthood, but seized the revenues of the alien
priories; of these there might have been one hundred
and fifty within the realm, and what he took from
them he spent on his army
Edward II. and Edward III. followed the preced-
ent, and during the last reign, when the penny
dropped four grains, these revenues were sequestered
no less than twenty-three years. Under Henry IV.
the penny lost three grains, and what remained of
the income of these houses was permanently applied
to defraying the expenses of the court. Henry V.
dissolved them, and vested their estates in the crown.
In the reign of Henry IV , when the penny was
on the point of losing three grains of its silver, the
tone of Parliament was similar to that of the parlia-
ments of the Reformation. On one occasion the
king asked for a subsidy, and the Speaker suggested
that without burdening the laity he might “ supply
his occasions by seizing on the revenues of the
clergy ” and in 1410 Lord Cobham anticipated the
Parliament of 1536 by introducing a bill for the con-
fiscation of conventual revenues to the amount of
322,000 marks, a sum which he averred represented
the income of certain corporations whose names he
appended in a schedule. 2
1 Pari Hist,, Cobbett, 1. 295. 2 Ibid., 310.
196
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
Year by year, as society consolidated, the economic
type was propagated ; and, as the pressure of a con-
tracting currency stimulated these men to action, the
demand for cheap leligion grew fiercer, London,
the monied centre, waxed hotter and hotter, and a
single passage from the Supplicacyon for Beggers
shows how bitter the denunciations of the system of
paying for miracles became : —
“Whate money pull they yn by probates of testamentes,
priuy tithes, and by mennes often nges to theyre pilgrimages,
and at they re first masses? Euery man and childe that is
buried, must pay sumwhat for masses and diriges to be song
for him, or elles they will accuse the dedes frendes and
executours of heresie. whate money get they by mortuaries,
by hearing of confessions , , . by halowing of churches,
altares, superaltares, chapelles, and bells, by cursing of men
and absoluing theim agem for money ?” 1
One of the ballads of Cromwell's time ridiculed,
in this manner, all the chief pilgrimages of the king-
dom : —
“ Ronnying hyther and thyther,
We cannot tell whither,
In offryng candels and pence
To stones and stockes,
And to olde rotten blockes,
That came, we know not from whense.
“To Walsyngham a gaddyng,
To Canterbury a maddyng,
As men distraught of mynde ;
With fewe clothes on our backes,
But an image of waxe,
For the lame and for the blynde.
* A Supphauyon for Beggm, 2, Early Eng. Text Soc.
rn THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 1 97
“Yet offer what ye wolde,
Were it otes, syluer, or golde
Pyn, poynt, brooch e, or rynge,
The church e were as then,
Such charitable men,
That they would refuse nothyng.” 1
But the war was not waged with words alone. At
the comparatively early date of 1393, London had
grown so unruly that Richard assumed the govern-
ment of the city himself. First he appointed Sir
Edward Darlington warden, but Sir Edward proving
too lenient, he replaced him with Sir Baldwin Rad-
ington. Foxe, very frankly, explained why : —
" For the Londoners at that time were notoriously known
to be favourers of Wickliffs side, as partly before this is to
be seen, and in the story of Saint Alban’s more plainly doth
appear, where the author of the said history, writing upon
the fifteenth year of King Richard’s reign, reporteth in these
words of the Londoners, that they were ‘ not right believers
in God, nor in the traditions of their forefathers ; sustamers
of the Lollards, depravers of religious men, withholders of
tithes, and impoverishers of the common people.’
“ . . . The king, incensed not a little with the complaint
of the bishops, conceived eftsoons, against the mayor and
sheriffs, and against the whole city of London, a great
stomach; insomuch, that the mayor and both the sheriffs
were sent for, and removed from their office.” 2
By the opening of the sixteenth century a priest
could hardly collect his dues without danger, the
Bishop of London indeed roundly declared to the gov-
ernment that justice could not be had from the courts.
In 1 5 14 the infant child of a merchant tailor named
Acts and Monuments , v, 404
2 Ibid.y 111. 218
198
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Hun died, and the parson of the parish sued the father
for a bearing sheet, which he claimed as a mortuary.
Hun contested the case, and got out a writ of prae-
munire against the priest, which so alarmed the
clergy that the chancellor of the diocese accused
him of heresy, and confined him in the Lollard’s
tower of Saint Paul’s.
In due time the usual articles were exhibited against
the defendant, charging that he had disputed the law-
fulness of tithes, and had said they were ordained
“only by the covetousness of priests ’’ ; also that he
possessed divers of “Wickliff’s damnable works,” and
more to the same effect.
Upon these articles Fitzjames, Bishop of London,
examined Hun on December 2, and after the exami-
nation recommitted him. On the morning of the
4th, a boy sent with his breakfast found him hanging
to a beam in his cell. The clergy said suicide, but
the populace cried murder, and the coroner’s jury
found a verdict against Dr. Horsey, the chancellor.
The situation then became grave, and Fitzjames
wrote to Wolsey a remarkable letter, which showed
not only high passion, but serious alarm : —
“ In most humble wise I beseech you, that I may have the
king’s gracious favour ... for assured am I, if my chan-
cellor be tried by any twelve men in London, they be so
maliciously set, ‘ m favorem hsereticse pravitatis,’ that they
will cast and condemn any clerk, though he were as innocent
as Abel." 1
The evidence is conclusive that, from the outset,
industry bred heretics; agriculture, believers. Tho-
1 Ads and Monuments, iv. 196,
VII.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
199
rold Rogers has explained that the east of England,
from Kent to the Wash and on to Yorkshire, was the
richest part of the kingdom, 1 and Mr. Blunt, in his
Reformation of the Church of England, has published
an analysis of the martyrdoms under Mary He has
shown that out of 277 victims, 234 came from the
district to the east of a line drawn from Boston to
Portsmouth. West of this line Oxford had most
burnings ; but, by the reign of Mary, manufactures
had spread so far inland that the industries of Ox-
fordshire were only surpassed by those of Middlesex 2
In Wickhffe’s time Norwich stood next to London,
and Norwich was infested with Lollards, many of
whom were executed there.
On the other hand, but two executions are recorded
in the six agricultural counties north of the Humber
— counties which were the poorest and the farthest
removed from the lines of trade Thus the eastern
counties were the hot-bed of Puritanism. There,
Kett’s rebellion broke out under Edward VI. ; there,
Cromwell recruited his Ironsides, and throughout
this region, before the beginning of the Reforma-
tion, assaults on relics were most frequent and vio-
lent. One of the most famous of these relics was
the rood of Dovercourt Dovercourt is part of Har-
wich, on the Essex coast ; Dedham lies ten miles
inland, on the border of Suffolk ; and the descrip-
tion given by Foxe of the burning of the image
of Dovercourt, is an example of what went on
throughout the southeast just before the time of
the divorce: —
1 Agriculture and Prices , iv 18
2 Reformation of the Church of England, Blunt, 11 222.
200
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
“In the same \ ear of our Lord 1532, there was an idol
named the Rood of Dovercourt, whereunto was much and
great resort of people for at that tune there was great
rumour blown abroad amongst the ignorant sort, that the
power of the idol of Dovercourt was so great, that no man
had power to shut the chinch-door where he stood; and
therefore they let the church-door, both night and day, con-
tinually stand open, for the more ciedit unto their blind
rumour. This once being conceived m the heads of the
vulgar sort, seemed a great marvel unto many men , but to
many again, whom God had blessed with his spirit, it was
greatly suspected, especially unto these, whose names here
follow as Robert King of Dedham, Robert Debnam of
Eastbeigholt, Nicholas Marsh of Dedham, and Robert Gard-
ner of Dedham, whose consciences were sore burdened to
see the honour and power of the almighty living God so
to be blasphemed by such an idol. Wherefore they were
moved by the Spirit of God, to travel out of Dedham in a
wondrous goodly night, both hard frost and fair moonshine,
although the night befoic, and the night after, were exceed-
ing foul and lainy. It was ftom the town of Dedham, to
the place where the filth v Rood stood, ten miles. Notwith-
standing, they weits so willing in that their enterprise, that
they went these ten miles without pain, and found the church
door open, according to the blind talk of the ignorant peo-
ple ; for there duist no unfaithful body shut it. This hap-
pened well fox their purpose, for they found the idol, which
had as nuu h power to keep the door shut, as to keep it
open ; ami for proof thereof, they took the idol from his
shrine, and carried him quarter of a mile from the place
w r here he stood, without any resistance of the said idol.
Whereupon they struck fire with a flint-stone, and suddenly
set him on fire, who burned out so brim, that he lighted
them home waul one good mile of the ten,
“This done, there went a great talk abroad that they
should have great riches in that place ; but it was very
untrue ; for it was not their thought or enterprise, as they
themselves afterwards confessed, for there was nothing taken
VII. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 201
away but his coat, his shoes, and the tapers. The tapers
did help to burn him, the shoes they had again, and the
coat one Sir Thomas Rose did burn ; but they had neither
penny, halfpenny, gold, groat, nor jewel.
“ Notwithstanding, three of them were afterwards indicted
of felony, and hanged in chains within half a year, or there-
about.
“The same year, and the year before, there were many
images cast down and destroyed m many places : as the image
of the crucifix in the highway by Coggeshall, the image of
Saint Petronal m the church of Great Horksleigh, the image
of Saint Christopher by Sudbury, and another image of Saint
Petronal m a chapel of Ipswich.” 1
England’s economic supremacy is recent, and has
resulted from the change in the seat of exchanges
which followed the discovery of America and the
sea-route to India , long before Columbus, however,
the introduction of the mariner’s compass had altered
the paths commerce followed between the north and
south of Europe during the crusades.
The necessity of travel by land built up the Fairs
of Champagne ; they declined when safe ocean navi-
gation had cheapened marine freights. Then Ant-
werp and Bruges superseded Provins and the towns
of Central France, and rapidly grew to be the distrib-
uting points for Eastern merchandise for Germany,
the Baltic, and England. In 1317 the Venetians
organized a direct packet service with Flanders,
and finally, the discoveries of Vasco-da-Gama, at
the end of the fifteenth century, threw Italy com-
pletely out of the line of the Asiatic trade.
1 Acts and Monuments, iv. 706 .
202
CIVILIZATION A\I> DECAY
CHAP
British mdustiies seem to have sympathized with
these changes, for weaving first assumed some im-
portance under Edward I , although English cloth
long lemained inferior to continental. The next
advance was contemporaneous with the discovery
of the Cape of Good Hope On July 8, 1497,
Vasco-da-Garoa sailed for Calicut, and in the pre-
vious year Henry VII. negotiated the 41 Magnus
Intercursus,” by which treaty the Merchant Ad-
venturers succeeded for the first time in establishing
themselves advantageously in Antwerp. Thence-
forwaid England began to play a part in the in-
dustrial competition of Europe, but even then her
progress was painfully slow. The accumulations of
capital were small, and inci eased but moderately,
and a full century later, when the Dutch easily
raised £ 600,000 for their East India Company, only
£ 72,000 were subscribed in London for the English
venture.
Throughout the Middle Ages, while exchanges cen-
tred in North Italy, Great Britain hung on the out-
skirts of the commercial system of the world, and
even at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII.
she could not compare, either in wealth, refinement,
or organization, with such a kingdom as France
The crown had not been the prize of the strongest
in a struggle among equals, but had fallen to a soldier
of a superior race, under whom no great nobility ever
grew up. No baron in England corresponded with
such princes as the dukes of Normandy and Bur-
gundy, the ‘ counts of Champagne and Toulouse.
Fortifications were on a puny scale ; no strongholds
like Pierrefonds or Vitr& Coucy or Carcassonne ex*
VII. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 203
isted, and the Tower of London itself was insignifi-
cant beside the Chateau Gaillard, which Coeur-de-Lion
planted on the Seine
The population was scanty, and increased little.
When Henry VIII. came to the throne in 1309,
London may have had forty or fifty thousand in-
habitants, York eleven thousand, Bristol nine or ten
thousand, and Norwich six thousand 1 Paris at that
time probably contained between three and four hun-
dred thousand, and Milan and Ghent two hundred
and fifty thousand each.
But although England was not a monied centre dur-
ing the Middle Ages, and perhaps for that very reason,
she felt with acuteness the financial pressure of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries She had little gold
and silver, and gold and silver lose in relative value;
she had few manufactures, and manufactures were
comparatively prosperous ; her wealth lay in her
agricultural interests, and farm products were, for
the most part, severely pinched.
Commenting on the prices between the end of the
thirteenth century and the middle of the sixteenth,
Mr Rogers has observed : —
“ Again, upon several articles of the first importance, there
is a marked decline m the price from the average of 1261-
1400 to that of 1401-1540. This would have been more
conspicuous, if I had in my earlier volumes compared all
prices from 1261 to 1350 with those of 1351-1400. But
even over the whole range, every kind of gram, except
wheat and peas, is dearer m the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries than it is in the first hundred and forty years of
the present period [1401-1582] ; and had I taken the
1 Industrial and Commercial History of England \ Rogers, 48 .
204
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
average price of wheat during the last fifty yeais of the
fourteenth century, it would have been (6r, ihf.) dearer
than the average of 1401-1540 (jf. heightened as
this is by the dearness of the last thirteen years.” 1
The tables published by Mr. Rogers make it possi-
ble to form some idea of the strain to which the popu-
lation of Great Britain was exposed, during the two
hundred and fifty yeais which intervened between
the crisis at the close of the thirteenth century,
and the discovery of the mines of Potosi in 1545,
which flooded the world with silver Throughout
this long interval an expanding commerce unceas-
ingly enlarged the demand for currency, while no ade-
quate additions were made to the stock of the precious
metals ; the consequence was that their relative value
rose, while the value of commodities declined, and
this process had a tendency to debase the coinage.
The latter part of the Middle Ages was a time of
rapid centralization, when the cost of administration
grew from year to year; but in proportion as the
necessities of the government increased, the power
of the people to pay taxes diminished, because the
products which they sold brought less of the standard
coin. To meet the deficit the same weight of metal
had to be cut into more pieces, and thus by a con-
tinued inflation of the currency, general bankruptcy
was averted. The various stages of pressure are
pretty clearly marked by the records of the Mint
Apparently the stringency which began in France
about the end of the reign of Saint Louis, or some-
what later, did not affect England immediately, for
prices do not seem to have reached their maximum
1 Agriculture and Prices, iv. 715.
VII. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 205
until after 1290, and Edward I only reduced the
penny, in 1299, from 22.5 grains of silver to 2225
grains. Thenceforward the decline, though spas-
modic, on the whole tended to increase m severity
from generation to generation The long French
wars, and the Black Death, produced a profound
effect upon the domestic economy of the kingdom
under Edward III ; and the Black Death, especially,
seems to have had the unusual result of raising prices
at a time of commercial collapse. This rise probably
was due to the dearth of labour, for half the popula-
tion of Europe is said to have perished, and, at all
events, the crops often could not be reaped through
lack of hands. More than a generation elapsed be-
fore normal conditions returned.
Immediately before the French war the penny
lost two grams, and between 1346 and 1351, during
the Black Death, it lost two grains and a quarter
more, a depreciation of four grains and a half m fifty
years; then for half a century an equilibrium was
maintained. Under Henry IV. there was a sharp
decline of three grains, equal to an inflation of seven-
teen per cent, and by 1470, under Henry VI , the
penny fell to twelve grains. Then a period of sta-
bility followed, which lasted until just before the
Reformation, when a crisis unparalleled 111 severity
began, a crisis which probably was the proximate
cause of the confiscation of the conventual estates.
In 1526 the penny suddenly lost a grain and a half,
or about twelve and a half per cent, and then, when
further reductions of weight would have made the
piece too flimsy, the government resorted to adul-
teration. In 1 542, a ten-grain penny was coined with
206
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
one part in five of alloy ; in 1 544, the alloy had risen
to one-half, and in 1545, two-thirds of the coin was
base metal — a depreciation of more than seventy
per cent in twenty years.
Meanwhile, though prices had fluctuated, the trend
had been downward, and downward so strongly that
it had not been fully counteracted by the reductions
of bullion in the money. Rogers thought lath-nails
perhaps the best gauge of prices, and in commenting
on the years which preceded the Reformation, he
remarked : —
“From 1461 to 1540, the average [of lath-nails] is very
little higher than it was from 1261 to 1350, illustrating anew
that significant decline m prices which characterizes the
economical history of England during the eighty years
1461-1540.” 1
Although wheat rose more than other grains, and
is therefore an unfavourable standard of comparison,
wheat yields substantially the same result During
the last forty years of the thirteenth century, the
average price of the quarter was 54*. iof<£, and for
the last decade, 6 s . id. For the first forty years of
the sixteenth century the average was 6 s 10 d The
penny of 1526, however, contained only about forty-
seven per cent of the bullion of the penny of 1299.
“The most remarkable fact in connection with the
issue of base money by Henry VIII. is the singular
identity of the average price of grain, especially
wheat, during the first 140 years of my present
period, with the last 140 of my first two volumes.” 2
1 Agriculture and Prices , iv. 454.
2 Ibid., iv. 200 For the average prices of gram see tables m vol. i
245, and iv. 292.
VII.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
20 /
After a full examination of his tables, Rogers con-
cluded that the great rise which made the prosperity
of Elizabeth's reign did not begin until some “year
between 1545 and 1 549 ” 1 This corresponds precisely
with the discovery of Potosi in 1545, and that the ad-
vance was due to the new silver, and not to the debase-
ment of the coinage, seems demonstrated by the fact
that no fall took place when the currency was restored
by Elizabeth, but, on the contrary, the upward move-
ment continued until well into the next century.
Some idea may be formed from these figures of the
contraction which prevailed during the years of the
Reformation In 1544, toward the close of Henry’s
reign, the penny held five grains of pure silver as
against about 20.S grains in 1299, and yet its purchas-
ing power had not greatly varied. Bullion must there-
fore have had about four times the relative value in
1544 that it had two hundred and fifty years earlier,
and, if the extremely debased issues of 1545 and later
be taken as the measure, its value was much higher.
Had Potosi been discovered a generation earlier,
the whole course of English development might have
been modified, for it is not impossible that, without
the aid of falling prices, the rising capitalistic class
might have lacked the power to confiscate the monas-
tic estates. As it was, the pressure continued until
the catastrophe occurred, relic worship was swept
away, the property of the nation was redistributed,
and an impulsion was given to large farming which
led to the rapid eviction of the yeomanry. As the
yeomen were driven from their land, they roamed
over the world, colonizing and conquering, from the
1 Agriculture and Prices , iv. 734.
208
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Mississippi to the Ganges ; building up, in the course
of two hundred and fifty years, a centralization greater
than that of Rome, and more absolute than that of
Constantinople.
Changes so vast in the forms of competition neces-
sarily changed the complexion of society Men who
had flourished in an age of decentralization and of
imagination passed away, and were replaced by a new
aristocracy The soldier and the priest were over-
powered ; and, from the Reformation downward, the
monied type possessed the world
Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, was the ideal of
this type, and he was accordingly the Englishman
who rose highest during the convulsion of the Ref-
ormation. He was a perfect commercial adventurer,
and Chapuys, the ambassador of Charles V. at Lon-
don, thus described his origin to his master . —
" Cromwell is the son of a poor farrier, who lived in a little
village a league and a half from here, and is buried m the
parish graveyard His uncle, father of the cousin whom he
has already made rich, was cook of the late Archbishop of
Canterbury. Cromwell was ill-behaved when young, and
after an imprisonment was forced to leave the country. He
went to Flanders, Rome, and elsewhere m Italy. When he
returned he married the daughter of a shearman, and served
m his house ; he then became a solicitor.” 1
The trouble which drove him abroad seems to have
been with his father, and he probably started on his
travels about 1 504 He led a dissolute and vagabond
life, served as a mercenary in Italy, “was wild and
youthful, ... as he himself was wont ofttimes to
1 Chapuys to Granville, Cal ix. No. 862 The State Papers edited
by Messrs. Brewer and Gairdner are referred to by the word “ Cal.”
VII.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
209
declare unto Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury,
showing what a ruffian he was in his young days
. . . also what a great doer he was with Geffery
Chambers in publishing and setting forth the pardons
of Boston everywhere in churches as he went.” 1
These “pardons” were indulgences he succeeded
in obtaining from the pope for the town of Boston,
which he peddled about the country as he went
He served as a clerk in the counting house of the
Merchant Adventurers at Antwerp, and also appears
to have filled some such position with a Venetian
merchant. On his return to England in 1513, he
married and set up a fulling-mill, he also became
an attorney and a usurer, dwelling by Fenchurch,
in London.
In 1523, having been elected to Parliament, Crom-
well was a mpst prosperous man. At this time he
entered Wolsey’s service, and made himself of use in
suppressing convents to supply endowments for the
cardinal^ colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. When
Wolsey fell, he ingratiated himself with Henry, and
thenceforward rose rapidly He became chancellor
of the exchequer, master of the rolls, secretary of
state, vicar general, a Knight of the Garter, and
Earl of Essex. At once the head of Church and
State, probably no English subject has ever been so
powerful.
Both he and Cranmer succeeded through flexi-
bility and adroitness He suggested to Henry to
accomplish his ends by robbing the convents, and
Mr. Brewer, an excellent authority, thought him
notoriously venal from the outset.
1 Acts and Monuments, v. 365.
P
210
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
His executive and business capacity was unri-
valled. He had the instinct for money, and provided
he made it, he scrupled not about the means. In the
State Papers there is an amusing account of the
treatment he put up with, when at the pinnacle of
greatness : —
“And as for my Lord Prevye Sealle, I wold not be m his
case for all that ever he hathe, for the King beknaveth him
twice a weke, and some-tyme knocke him well about thee
pate ; and yet when he hathe bene well pomeld aboute the
hedde, and shaken up, as it were a dogge, he will come out
into the great chambre, shaking of the bushe with as mery a
countenance as thoughe he mought rule all the roste ” 1
Though good-natured where his interests were not
involved, he appears to have been callous to the
sight of pain, and not only attended to the racking
of important witnesses, but went in state to see
Father Forest roasted in chains for denying the
royal supremacy, which he was labouring to estab-
lish. His behaviour to Lambert, whom he sent to
the fire for confessing his own principles, astonished
even those who knew him well How he became a
Protestant is uncertain; Foxe thought, by reading
Erasmus's translation of the New Testament. More
probably he was sceptical because he was of the
economic type. At all events, he hated Rome, and
Foxe said that in 1538 he was “the chief friend of
the gospellers."
In that same year Lambert was tried for heresy
regarding transubstantiation, and it was then Crom-
well sentenced him to be burned alive. Character-
1 State Papers , li, 552,
TO THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 21 1
istically, he is said to have invited him to breakfast
on the morning of the execution, and to have then
begged his pardon for what he had done
Pole described a conversation he had with Essex
about the duty of ministers to kings. Pole thought
their first obligation was to consider their masters'
honour, and insisted on the divergence between
honour and expediency Such notions seemed fan-
tastic to Cromwell, who told Pole that a prudent
politician would study a prince’s inclinations -and act
accordingly He then offered Pole a manuscript of
Machiavelli’s Prince. Such a temperament differed,
not so much in degree as in kind, from that of God-
frey de Bouillon or Saint Louis, Bayard or the Black
Prince. It was subtler, more acquisitive, more tena-
cious of life, and men and women of the breed of
Cromwell rose rapidly to be the owners of England
during the sixteenth century. Social standards
changed Even in semi-barbarous ages a lofty
courtesy had always been deemed befitting the great
Saint Anselm and Hdloise, Saladin and Coeur-de-Lion
have remained ideals for centuries, because they rep-
resented a phase of civilization ; and Froissart has
described how the Black Prince entertained his pris-
oners after Poitiers : —
“ The prince himself served the king’s table, as well as the
others, with every mark of humility, and would not sit down
at it, in spite of all his entreaties for him so to do, saying
that ‘ he was not worthy of such an honour, nor did it apper-
tain to him to seat himself at the table of so great a king, or
of so valiant a man as he had shown himself by his actions
that day.’ ” 1
1 Chronicles, i, clxvn.
212
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
One hundred and fifty years of progress had elim-
inated chivalry. Manners were coarse and morals
loose at the court of Henry VIII Foreign ambas-
sadors spoke with little respect of the society they
saw Chapuys permitted himself to sneer at Lady
Jane Seymour, who afterward became queen, because
he seems to have thought the ladies of the court
venal : —
“ I leave you to judge whether, being English, and hav-
ing frequented the court, 'si elle ne tiendroit pas a con-
science de navoir pourveu et pr£venu de savoir que cest de
fane nopces.’ ” 1
The scandals of the Boleyn family are too well
known to need notice , 2 and it would be futile to
accumulate examples of the absence of female virtue
when the fact is notorious. The rising nobility
resembled Cromwell more or less feebly. The mer-
cenary quality was the salient characteristic of the
favoured class. Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire,
made his fortune through his own shrewdness and
the beauty of his daughters. Mary, the younger,
was an early mistress of Henry ; Anne, the elder and
the astuter, was his wife. Boleyn’s title and his fort-
une came through this connection. Boleyn was a
specimen of a class , in him the instinct of self-pres-
ervation was highly developed. When his daughter
Anne, and his son, Lord Rochford, were tried at the
Tower for incest, the evidence was so flimsy that ten
to one was bet in the court-room on acquittal At
this supreme moment, the attitude of the father was
1 Chapuys to Perrenot, Cal. x No. 901.
2 See Anne Boleyn, Friedmann, 1. 43, and elsewhere.
VII.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
213
thus described by Chapuys, who had good sources of
information : —
“ On the 15th the said concubine and her brother were
condemned of treason by all the principal lords of England,
and the Duke of Norfolk [her uncle] pronounced sentence.
I am told the Earl of Wiltshire was quite as ready to assist
at the judgment as he had done at the condemnation of the
other four.” 1
The grandfather of Thomas Boleyn had been an
alderman of London and a rich tradesman , his son
had been knighted, and had retired from business,
and Wiltshire himself, though a younger son and with
but fifty pounds a year when married, raised himself
by his wits, and the use of his children, to be a wealthy
earl.
The history of the Cecil family is not dissimilar
David, the first of the name who emerged from
obscurity, gained a certain favour under Henry
VIII. ; his son Richard, a most capable manager,
obtained a fair share of the monastic plunder, was
groom of the robes, constable of Warwick Castle,
and died rich His son was the great Lord Burleigh,
in regard to whom perhaps it may be best to quote
an impartial authority. Macaulay described him as
possessed of “a cool temper, a sound judgment,
great powers of application, and a constant eye to
the main chance ... He never deserted his friends
till it was very inconvenient to stand by them, was
an excellent Protestant when it was not very advan-
tageous to be a Papist, recommended a tolerant pol-
icy to his mistress as strongly as he could recommend
1 Cal, x No. 908.
214
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
it without hazarding her favour, never put to the rack
any person from whom it did not seem probable that
useful information might be derived, and was so mod-
erate in his desires that he left only three hundred
distinct landed estates, though he might, as his hon-
est servant assures us, have left much more, 4 if he
would have taken money 6ut of the exchequer for
his own use, as many treasurers have done ’ ” 1
The Howards, though of an earlier time, were of
the same temperament. The founder was a lawyer,
who sat on the bench of the Common Pleas under
Edward I , and who, therefore, did not earn his
knighthood on a stricken field, as the Black Prince
won his spurs at Crecy After his death his de-
scendants made little stir for a century, but they
married advantageously, accumulated money, and, in
the fifteenth century, one Robert Howard married
a daughter of Thom'as Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk
This he hardly would have done had he not been a
man of substance, since he seems not to have been
a man of war The alliance made the fortune of the
family. It also appears to have added some martial
instinct to the stock, for Richard III. gave John
Howard the title of the Mowbrays, and this John was
afterwards killed at Bosworth. His son commanded
at Flodden, and his grandson was the great spoiler
of the convents under Henry VIII., who also sup-
pressed the northern rebellion.
Thomas Howard, the minister of Henry VIII.,
was one of the most interesting characters of his
generation. He was naturally a strong Conserva-
tive; Chapuys never doubted that “the change in
1 Burleigh and his Times , Essays.
VII. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 21 $
matters of religion [was] not to his mind ,, in 1534
he even went so far as to tell the French ambassador
that he would not consent to a change, and this
speech having been repeated to the king, occasioned
his momentary disgrace. 1 At one time Lord Darcy,
the head of the reactionary party, counted on his sup-
port against Cromwell, though he warned Chapuys
not to trust him implicitly, because of “his incon-
stancy ” 2 Yet, under a certain appearance of vacil-
lation, he hid a profound and subtle appreciation of
the society which environed him, this “ inconstancy ”
made his high fortune. He had a sure instinct,
which taught him at the critical moment where his
interests lay, and he never was deceived. Henry
distrusted him, but could not do without him, and
paid high for his support. Howard, on his side, was
keenly distressed when he found he had gone too
far; and when the northern insurrection broke out,
and he was offered the command of the royal forces,
the Bishop of Carlisle, with whom he dined, said he
had never seen the duke “ so happy as he was
to-day.” 3
Once in the field against his friends, there were
no lengths to which Thomas Howard would not go.
He never wearied of boasting of his lies and of his
cruelty; he wrote to assure Henry he would spare
no pains to entrap them, and would esteem no prom-
ise he made to the rebels, “for surely I shall ob-
serve no part thereof, for any respect of that other
might call mine honor dystayned ” 4
1 Cal, vn No 296.
2 Ibid t xi No. 576, Chapuys to Charles
8 Ioid, t xi. No. 576. 4 Ibid., xi. No. 864.
21 6
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP-
As Cromwell behaved toward Lambert, so he
behaved toward the Carthusians. Though they were
men in whose religion he probably believed as sin-
cerely as he believed anything, and in whose cause
he had professed himself ready to take up arms, when
they were sent to the stake he attended the execution
as a spectacle, and watched them expire in torments,
without a pang. Men gifted like Howard were suc-
cessful in the Reformation, and Norfolk made a colos-
sal fortune out of his politics. The price of his service
was thirteen convents, and his son Surrey had two ;
of what he made in other ways no record remains.
Such was the new aristocracy , but the bulk of the
old baronage was differently bred, and those who were
of the antiquated type were doomed to pass away.
The publication of the State Papers leaves no doubt
that the ancient feudal gentry, both titled and untitled,
as a body, opposed the reform Many of the most
considerable of these were compromised in the Pil-
grimage of Grace in 1536, among whom was Thomas
Lord Darcy If a mediaeval baron still lived in the
middle of the sixteenth century, that man was Darcy.
Since the Conqueror granted the Norman de Areci
thirty lordships in Lincolnshire, his ancestors had
been soldiers, and at his home in the north his re-
tainers formed an army as of old Born in 1467, at
twenty-five he bound himself by indenture to serve
Henry VII. beyond the sea, at the head of a thou-
sand men, and more than forty years afterward he
promised Chapuys that he would march against Lon-
don with a force eight thousand strong, if the emperor
would attack Henry VIII. All his life long he had
fought upon the borders. He had been captain of
VII. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 217
Berwick, warden of the east and middle marches,
and in 15 n he had volunteered to lead a British
contingent against the Moors He was a Knight of
the Garter, a member of the Privy Council, and when
the insurrection broke out, he commanded at Ponte-
fract Castle, the strongest position in Yorkshire
A survival of the past, he retained the ideas of
Crdcy and Poitiers, and these brought him to the
block. While negotiations were pending, Norfolk
seems to have wanted to save him, though possibly
he may have been actuated by a more sinister pur-
pose. At all events he certainly wrote suggesting to
Darcy to make his peace by ensnaring Aske, the
rebel leader, and giving him up to the government
To Norfolk this seemed a perfectly legitimate trans-
action. By such methods he rose to eminence. To
Darcy it seemed dishonour, and he died for it
Instead of doing as he was bid, he reproached
Norfolk for deeming him capable of treachery: —
u Where your lordship advises me to take Aske, quick or
dead, as you think I may do by policy, and so gam the
king’s favour , alays my good lord yt ever ye being a man
of so much honour and gret experyence shold advice or
chuss mee a man to be of eny such sortt or facion to betray
or dissav eny liffyng man, French man, Scott, yea, or a
Turke ; of my faith, to gett and wyn to me and myn heyres
fowr of the best dukes landdes m Fraunce, or to be kyng
there, I wold nott do it to no liffyng person.” 1
Darcy averred that he surrendered Pontefract to
the rebels because the government neglected to re-
lieve him, and although doubtless he always sympa-
1 Cal xi No. 1045.
218
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
thized with the rising, he promptly wrote to London
when the outbreak began, to warn Henry not only of
the weakness of his fortress, but of the power of the
enemy 1 When the royal herald visited the castle to
treat with the insurgents, he found Darcy, Sir Robert
Constable, Aske, and others, who told him they were
on a pilgrimage to London to have all the “vile
blood put from” the Privy Council, “and noble
blood set up again/’ and to make restitution for the
wrongs done the Church . 2
This Aske was he whom Darcy refused to betray,
but instead he offered to do all he could “as a true
knight and subject” to pacify the country, and he
did help to persuade the rebels to disperse on Henry’s
promise of a redress of grievances. In the moment
of peril both Darcy and Aske were pardoned and
cajoled, but the rising monied type were not the men
to let the soldiers escape them, once they held them
disarmed. Even while Henry was plotting the de-
struction of those to whom he had pledged his word,
Norfolk wrote from the north to Cromwell : “ I have
by policy brought him [Aske] to desire me to yeve
him licence to ride to London, and have promised to
write a letter . . . which ... I pray you take of the
like sort as you did the other I wrote for Sir Thomas
Percy. If neither of them both come never in this
country again I think neither true nor honest men
woll be sorry thereof, nor in likewise for my Lord
Darcy nor Sir Robert Constable.” 3 Percy and Con-
stable, Aske and Darcy, all perished on the scaffold.
Darcy and his like recognized that a new world
1 Cal xi. No. 729 2 Ibtd , xi. No. 826.
8 Ibid, xu. pt, 1. No. 698.
VII. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 219
had risen about them, in which they had no place.
During his imprisonment in London, before his exe-
cution, he was examined by Cromwell, and thus,
almost with his dying words, addressed the man
who was the incarnation of the force that killed
him: —
“ Cromwell, it is thou that art the very original and chief
causer of all this rebellion and mischief, and art likewise
causer of the apprehension of us that be noble men and dost
daily earnestly travail to bring us to our end and to strike
off our heads, and I trust that or thou die, though thou
wouldst procure all the noblemen’s heads within the realm
to be stricken off, yet shall there one head remain that shall
strike off thy head .” 1
1 CaL xu. pt 1 No. 976.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS
At the apex of the new society stood Henry VIII.,
who, like Philip the Fair, had many of the qualities
which make a great religious reformer in an economic
age In reaching an estimate of his nature, however,
the opinions of Englishmen are of no great value, since
they are usually distorted by prejudice The best
observers were the foreign ministers at his court,
whose business was to collect information for their
governments At a time when there were no news-
papers, these agents had to be accurate, and their
despatches are trustworthy.
Charles de Marillac was born in 1510 He belonged
to an old family, and had an unblemished reputation
He had no leaning against Protestants, for he was
disgraced by the Guise party. He was thirty when
in London as ambassador of Francis I After having
been a year in England, he wrote * —
“ This prmce seems to me subject among other vices to
three, which certainly in a king may be called pests, of
which the first is, that he is so avaricious and covetous, that
all the riches of the world would not be sufficient to satisfy
and content his ambition. , . . From this proceeds the
second evil and pest, which is distrust and fear . . . where-
fore he ceaselessly embrews his hands m blood, feeling in
220
chap viii THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS 221
his mind doubt of those about him, wishing to live without
suspicion, which every day augments. . . And in part
from these two evils proceeds the last pest, which is levity
and inconstancy; and partly also from the temper of the
nation, by which they have perverted the rights of religion,
of marriage, of honesty and honour, as if they were wax, the
which alloy can change itself into whatever forms they
wish.” 1
Cruelty was one of Henry’s most salient traits, and
was, perhaps, the faculty by which he succeeded m
imposing himself most strongly upon his contempo-
raries. He not only murdered his wives, his min-
isters, and his friends, but he pursued those who
opposed him with a vindictiveness which appalled
them He was ingenious in devising torments
Friar Forest, whose crime was the denial of the
royal supremacy, he caused to be slowly roasted over
a rood which he had fetched from Wales on purpose.
They “ hanged [him] in Smithfield in chains, upon a
gallows quick, by the middle and arm-holes, and fire
was made under him, and so was he consumed and
burned to death ” 2 Henry relished the idea of the
show so much, that Chapuys thought him disap-
pointed at not being able to attend with his whole
court.
His way of dealing with the Carthusians was equally
characteristic. The Carthusians were m the Church
what Darcy was in the State : men of the old imagi-
native type, of austere life and ascetic habits, in
whom still glowed the fiery enthusiasm of Hilde-
brand. They could not accept Henry as God’s vice*
1 Mai iliac au Connetable , Kaulek, 211.
2 Acts and Monuments , v. 180.
222
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
regent upon earth. The three priors — Houghton,
Webster, and Lawrence — were “ ripped up in each
other’s presence, their arms torn off, their hearts cut
out and rubbed upon their mouths and faces ” 1
Three more were chained upright to posts, where
they stood for fourteen days, “ without the possibility
of stirring for any purpose whatever, held fast by
iron collars on their necks, arms, and thighs.” 2 Then
they were hanged and disembowelled
In 1 5 37, ten were still resolute They were chained
in Newgate like the others, where, according to Stowe,
nine “ died . . . with stink and miserably smothered.”
The tenth, who survived, was hanged
Had Henry been hampered, like Darcy, with scru-
ples about honour, truth, or conscience, he too might
have been undone. His power lay in his capacity
for doing what was needful for success. He enticed
Aske to London, and, when he held him, slew him.
He pardoned Darcy, and then sent him to Tower
Hill.
Lacking force to crush the rebels, Norfolk, in the
royal name, pacified the people with pardon and
promises of redress. They dispersed, thinking them-
selves safe. Henry ignored his pledges, risings fol-
lowed ; but, when the country had been tranquillized
and his army was again in peaceful possession, he
thus instructed the Duke : —
“ Our pleasure is, that . . . you shal, in any wise, cause
suche dredfull execution to be doon upon a good nombre
of thmhabitauntes of every towne, village, and hamlet, that
have offended in this rebellion, aswell by the hanging of
1 Cal. viii. No 726.
2 Sander , Lewis* trans., 119.
vm.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS
them uppe m trees, as by the quartering of them, and the
setting of their heddes and quarters m every towne, greate
and small, and m al suche other places, as they may be a
ferefull spectacle to all other herafter, that wold practise any
like mater • whiche We requyre you to doo, without pitie or
respecte, accoidmg to our former letters ; remembnng that
it shalbe moche better, that these traitours shulde perishe
m their wilfull, unkynde, and traitorous folyes, thenne that
so slendre punishment shuld be doon upon them, as the
dredde thereof shuld not be a warning to others ” 1
Norfolk was after Henry’s pattern. The rebels
were his friends — men with whom he had pledged
himself to act shortly before But he had chosen
his side, he had made his bargain, and he earned his
pay. He was never weary of boasting of his cruelty
toward the defenceless yeomanry : —
“They shall be put to death m every town where they
dwelt. ... As many as chains of iron can be made for in
this town and in the country shall be hanged m them ; the
rest in ropes. Iron is marvellous scarce.”
He tried his prisoners by court martial, for he dared
not trust the juries Many of the farmers declared
they had been forced to join in the insurrection
through threats of violence, and these might have
been acquitted. “ They say I came out for fear of
my life, or for fear of burning my houses and de-
stroying of my wife and children /’ 2 But where
Henry and Norfolk were concerned there were no
acquittals.
In the same way Henry destroyed his ministers
when he had done with them. Though Cromwell
1 State Papers, i. 538.
2 Cal xu. pt. 1 No 498.
224
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP*
was sagacious, he was less crafty than Henry. Just
before his fall the king made him Earl of Essex, and
he lived in such complete ignorance of his fate that
his disgrace fell like a thunder-bolt. Marillac has
described how one day, m the council chamber,
Cromwell was arrested without warning, and “ moved
with indignation, he plucked his hat from his head
and threw it wrathfully upon the ground, saying to
Norfolk and to the rest of the council assembled,
that this was his reward for his services to the king,
. . . adding that since he was so treated, he renounced
all hope, and all he asked of the king his master . . .
was not to let him languish . ”
The Duke of Norfolk, having reproached him with
all the villanies done by him, tore from him the
Order of Saint George, which he w r ore about his
neck, and the admiral, to show himself as much
his enemy in adversity as he had been believed to be
his friend in prosperity, undid his garter 1
From one point of view Henry’s vanity was a
weakness, for it laid him open to attack, and the
diplomatic correspondence is filled with sneers like
this of Castillon’s: “II n’oublye jamais sa grandeur
et se tcu*t de celle des autres .” 2 Probably nothing
m Englisn civilization has ever equalled the adulation
he exacted from his courtiers, and especially from
his bishops, yet even this vanity was a source of
strength, for it made him insensible to ridicule which
would have unnerved Saint Louis.
On very scanty evidence, he caused his wife to be
arraigned for incest, and during the trial appeared
in public so gaily dressed, and after her conviction
1 Kaulek, 193, 194. 2 xbtd $ g 2
vm
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS 225
danced before the Court in such open delight, that
Chapuys himself was surprised : —
“ There are still two English gentlemen detained on her
account, and it is suspected that there will be many more,
because the king has said he believed that moie than ioo
had to do with her. You never saw prince or man who
made greater show of his horns or bore them more pleas-
antly^ 1
His manners, like those of Cromwell and Norfolk,
lacked the courtesy which distinguished men, even of
his own generation, like Sir Thomas More. He was
gluttonous and self-indulgent, and, toward the end
of his life, so bloated as to be helpless. His habits
were well understood at Court, and suitors tried to
approach him in the afternoon, when he was tipsy.
Marillac thought his gormandizing would kill him . —
“ There has been little doubt about the king, not so much
for the fever as for the trouble with the leg which he has had
which trouble seizes him very often because he is very gross,
and marvellously excessive in eating and drinking, so that
you often find him of a different purpose and opinion in the
morning from what you do after dinner.'’ 2
On May 14, 1538, Castillon wrote: —
Furthermore the king has had one of the fistulas on his
legs closed, and since ten or twelve days the humors, which
have no vent, have taken to stifling him, so much so, that he
has been some of the time speechless, the face all black, and
m great danger.” 3
The most marked characteristic of the feudal aris-
tocracy had been personal courage ; but as central-
1 Cal. x. No. 909.
2 Kaulek, 274; Sander , Lewis, 162, and note 2. 8 Kaulek, 50
< 3 *
226
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
ization advanced and a paid police removed the
necessity of self-defence, bravery ceased to be essen-
tial to success ; Henry apparently was not courage-
ous — certainly was not courageous in regard to
disease. When most infatuated with Anne Boleyn,
she fell ill of the sweating sickness ; he fled at once,
and wrote from a distance to beg her to fear nothing,
as “few or no women . . . have died of it ” 1
Marillac declared roundly that, in such matters, the
king was “the most timid person one could know.” 2
On the other hand, he was habitually so overbear-
ing as to be brutal to the weak. Lambert was a poor
sectary, of whom he determined to make an example.
He therefore prepared a solemn function, at which
he presided, assisted by the bishops and the other dig-
nitaries of the realm The accused, when brought
before this tribunal, apparently showed some con-
fusion, and Foxe has left a striking description of
how Henry tried to heighten this terror Henry was
dressed “all in white,” probably emblematic of his
purity as the head of the Church, and his “ look, his
cruel countenance, and his brows bent into severity,
did not a little augment this terror , plainly declaring
a mind full of indignation, far unworthy such a prince,
especially in such a matter, and against so humble
and obedient a subject .” 3
Gifted with such qualities, Henry could not have
failed to be a great religious reformer at the opening
of a great economic age. More than five hundred
years before, when society hung on the brink of dis*
* Lettres de Henri VIII \ h Anne Boleyn , Crapelet, Lettre 3.
2 Kaulek, 199.
8 Acts and Monuments t v. 229.
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS 22/
solution, the Church sustained centralization by elect-
ing Hugh Capet king of France A century later
the armed pilgrimages to Palestine had accelerated
the social movement, and consolidation again began.
Generation by generation the rapidity of movement
had increased, communication had been re-established
between the East and West, the mariner’s compass
and gunpowder had been introduced into Europe,
the attack had mastered the defence, and as the
forms of competition slowly changed, capital accumu-
lated, until, at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
wealth reached the point where it could lay the
foundation of the paid police, the crowning triumph
of the monied class.
The Reformation was the victory of this class over
the archaic type of man, and with the Reformation
the old imaginative civilization passed away; but
with all its power the monied intellect has certain
weaknesses, and neither in ancient Rome nor modern
England have capitalists been soldiers. The Tudor
aristocracy was not a martial caste Lacking physi-
cal force, this new nobility feared the ancient farming
population, whom they slowly exterminated , and they
feared them with reason, for from among the yeo-
manry Cromwell drew his Ironsides. Therefore one
of the chief preoccupations of the Tudor nobility
was to devise means to hold this dangerous element
in check, and as it could not organize an army, it
utilized the Church. The land-owners had other pur-
poses for the priesthood than simply to rob it ; they
had also to enslave it, and Henry’s title to greatness
lies in his having attained both ends
He not only plundered as no other man has plum
228
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
dered, but he succeeded in assuming the functions of
God's high priest, and becoming Christ's vicar upon
earth. Upon this point there can be no difference of
opinion ; not only are the formularies of the Church
of England clear, but Anglicans themselves admit it.
Macaulay was of Henry's communion ; Macaulay ’is
an historian whose opinion on such a point commands
respect, and Macaulay has summed up the position
of Henry VIII. as the head of the capitalistic hie-
rarchy in these words : —
“ What Henry and his favourite counsellors meant, at one
time, by the supremacy, was certainly nothing less than the
whole power of the keys. The king was to be the pope of
his kingdom, the vicar of God, the expositor of Catholic
verity, the channel of sacramental graces. He arrogated to
himself the right of deciding dogmatically what was orthodox
doctrine and what was heresy, of drawing up and imposing
confessions of faith, and of giving religious instruction to
his people.
“ He proclaimed that all jurisdiction, spiritual as well as
temporal, was derived from him alone, and that it was in
his power to confer episcopal authority, and to take it
away. . . .
“ According to this system, as expounded by Cranmer, the
king was the spiritual as well as the temporal chief of the
nation. In both capacities his Highness must have lieuten-
ants. As he appointed civil officers to keep his seal, to col-
lect his revenues, and to dispense justice m his name, so he
appointed divines of vaiious ranks to preach the gospel, and
to administer the sacraments. It was unnecessary that there
should be any imposition of hands. The king — such was
the opinion of Cranmer given in the plainest words, —
might, in virtue of authority derived from God, make a
priest ; and the priest so made needed no ordination what-
ever .” 1
1 History of England \ chap. I.
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS 229
Under the Tudors commerce and industry were
yet in their infancy. Great Britain still remained
substantially agricultural, and capital primarily
sought investment in land. The enclosure of the
commons and the confiscations of the monastic estates,
together formed a gigantic real estate speculation,
with which faith had little to do, and which was pos-
sible only because force began to express itself through
another type of intellect than that which had been able
to defend its property during an imaginative age.
The commercial community always demanded
cheap religion. Under Henry they inclined toward
Zwingli, under Elizabeth toward Calvin, under
Charles they were Presbyterian ; the gentry, on the
contrary, were by nature conservative, and favoured
orthodoxy as far as their interest in Church plunder
permitted them. Henry and Norfolk stood at the
head of this class, Norfolk’s conversion to Protes-
tantism has been explained by Chapuys, and Henry
remained a bigot to his death.
“ Shortly before he died, when about to communicate, as
he always did, under one kind, he rose up from his chair,
and fell on his knees to adore the body of our Lord. The
Zwmglians who were present said that his majesty, by reason
of his bodily weakness, might make his communion sitting
in his chair. The king’s answer was, 4 If I could throw my-
self down, not only on the ground, but under the ground, I
should not then think that I gave honour enough to the
most Holy Sacrament.’ ” 1
As to Norfolk, Chapuys has left his opinion in very
plain words : —
1 Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism , Sander, trans by Lewis,
161.
230
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
“ He [Norfolk] has a good deal changed his tune, for it
was he alone [in] the Court who showed himself the best of
Catholics, and who favoured most the authority of the pope ,
but he must act m this way not to lose his remaining in-
fluence, which apparently does not extend much further than
Cromwell wishes.” 1
To attain their end, the rising class, at whose head
these two men stood, had to doubly despoil the
Church in whose dogmas they believed. They con-
fiscated her lands to enrich themselves, and they
suppressed her revenues to buy the support of the
traders. Finally, their lack of physical force sug-
gested to them the expedient of seizing on the
ecclesiastical organization and filling it with their
servants, who should teach the people the religious
duty of submission to an authority which distrusted
an appeal to arms.
As Henry and Norfolk represented the landed
magnates, so Cromwell represented the mercantile
community; and when the alliance between these
two monied interests had been perfected, by the
appointment of Cromwell as secretary of state, some
time previous to April, 1534, events moved with pre-
cision and rapidity. They crowned Anne Boleyn on
June 1, 1533; in July the breach between the king
and pope became irreparable; in November, 1534,
Parliament declared Henry “ Supreme Head ” of the
Church , and in the following winter the whole ad-
ministration, both civil and ecclesiastical, was con-
centrated m Cromwell's hands. He acted with
astonishing energy.
1 Chapuys to Charles, Cal. vi. No. 1510, date Dec , 1533.
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS 23 1
In the autumn of 1535 he set on foot a visitation,
preparatory to the dissolution of the convents, and
Parliament passed the bill for suppression the next
February Cromwell also, as vicar general, pre-
sided over the convocation of Canterbury, which
made the first reformation of faith This convoca-
tion met in June, 1536, only shortly before the Pil-
grimage of Grace, and, under the fear of violence,
Henry and the conservatives were reduced to silence.
The evangelical influence for the moment held con-
trol, and the “Ten Articles,” the foundation of the
“Thirty-nine Articles,” together with the “Institu-
tion of a Christian Man,” which were produced, were
a great departure from orthodoxy.
In the fourth article, the dogma of the “Supper”
was made broad enough to include Lutherans, and
in the sixth, image worship was condemned On the
other hand, “Justification by Faith” began to assume
the importance it must always hold in all really Prot-
estant confessions In one of his homilies Cranmer,
at a later time, showed the comparative futility of
good works : —
“ A man must needs be nourished by good works ; but
first he must have faith. He that doeth good deeds, yet
without faith, he hath no life I can shew a man that by
faith without works lived, and came to heaven : but without
faith never man had life,” 1
“Never had the Jews, in their most blindness, so many
pilgrimages unto images ... as hath been used in our
time. . . . Keeping in divers places, as it were marts or
markets of merits ; being full of their holy relics, images,
shrines, and works of overflowing abundance ready to be
1 The Homilies , Come, 49.
232
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
sold. . . . Holy cowls, holy girdles, holy pardons, beads,
holy shoes, holy rules, and all full of holiness. . . . Which
were so esteemed and abused to the great prejudice of
God’s glory and commandments, that they were made most
high and most holy things, whereby to attain to the everlast-
ing life, or remission of sin.” 1
The anti-sacerdotal movement under Henry VIII
culminated in 1536 and 1537, when the country
rebelled, and the land-owners were in need of help
from the towns As long as the latter felt uncertain
of their grip on Church lands, the radical mercantile
interest was permitted to mould doctrine , but when
Norfolk had triumphed in the north, and Aske and
Darcy had been executed, a reaction set in In
November, 1538, Lambert was burned for denying
transubstantiation, and in 1539 the chapter in the
statute book 2 which followed that providing for the
suppression of the mitred abbeys, re-established au-
ricular confession, communion in one kind, private
masses, and, in a word, strict orthodoxy, saving in
the single tenet of the royal supremacy. To have
conceded that would have endangered property
Twelve months later the landed magnates felt strong
enough to discard the tradesmen , the alliance which
had carried through the Reformation was dissolved,
and Cromwell was beheaded.
Never did pope enforce the worship of the miracle
more savagely than did Henry. By the act of the
“ Six Articles,” the denial of the miracle of the mass
was punished by burning and forfeiture of goods,
without the privilege of abjuration. Purity of faith
could not have been the ideal of reformers.
1 The Homilies, Come, 56, 58, 2 31 Henry VIII., c. 14
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS 233
Until quite recently, Protestants have accepted
the tradition that the convents of England were
suppressed by the revolt of a people, outraged by
the disclosure of abominations perpetrated under the
shelter of monasticism. Within a few years, the pub-
lication of the British archives has thrown a new and
sombre light upon the Reformation. They seem to
prove, beyond a doubt, that as Philip dealt with the
Templars, so did Henry deal with all the religious
orders of his realm
In 1533 Henry’s position was desperate. He con-
fronted not only the pope and the emperor, but all
that remained of the old feudal society, and all that
survived of the decaying imaginative age. Nothing
could resist this combination save the rising power
of centralized capital, and Henry therefore had to
become the mouthpiece of the men who gave ex-
pression to this force.
He needed money, and money in abundance, and
Cromwell rose to a practical dictatorship because
he was fittest to provide it On all that relates to
Essex, Foxe is an undoubted authority, and Foxe
did not hesitate to attribute to Cromwell Henry’s
policy at this crisis; —
“ For so it pleased Almighty God, by means of the said
Lord Cromwell, to induce the king to suppress first the
chantries, then the friars’ houses and small monasteries, till,
at length, all the abbeys in England, both great and less,
were utterly overthrown and plucked up by the roots. . . .
“ Of how great laud and praise this man was worthy, and
what courage and stoutness was in him, it may hereby
evidently appear unto all men, that he alone, through the
singular dexterity of his wit and counsel, brought to pass
234
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
that, which, even unto this day no prince or king, through-
out all Europe, dare or can bring to pass For whereas
Bnttania alone, of all other nations, is and hath been, of her
own proper nature, most superstitious , this Cromwell, being
born of a common or base stock, through a divine method
or policy of wit and reason received, suffered, deluded,
brake off, and repressed, all the policies, trains, malice, and
hatred of friars, monks, religious men, and priests, of which
sort there was a great rabble in England. ” 1
Cromwell’s strength lay in his superiority to those
scruples of truth and honour which hamper feebler
men. He did what circumstances demanded His
object, like Philip’s, was to blacken his victims that
he might destroy them, and, to gather the evidence,
he chose instruments adapted to the work To have
used others would have demonstrated himself unfit.
Mr. Gairdner has remarked in his preface to the
tenth volume of the Calendar; “We have no reason
indeed to think highly of the character of Cromwell’s
visitors .” 2 This opinion of Mr Gairdner is sup-
ported by all the evidence extant. Thomas Legh,
one of the commissioners, not only always took
bribes, but, having been appointed master of Sher-
burn Hospital, administered it “ to the utter disinherit-
ance, decay and destruction of the ancient and godly
foundation of the same house .” 3 Henry probably
thought him dishonest, since he had his accounts
investigated Even Legh’s colleague, Ap Rice,
though venal himself, and in great fear of being
murdered for his treachery, denounced him in set
terms to Cromwell . —
* Acts and Monuments , v 368, 369. 2 Cal, x pref. xlm.
* See citations to the original authorities m Henry VIII, and the
JZngltsh Monasteries , Gasquet, 1. 454, and note.
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS
“And surely he asketh no less for every election than £ 20
as of duty, which in my opinion is too much, and above any
duty that was ever taken heretofore. Also m his visitations
he refuseth many times his reward, though it be competent,
for that they offer him so little and maketh them to send
after him such rewards as may please him, for surely religious
men were never afraid so much of Dr. Allen as they be of
him, he useth such rough fashion with them .” 1
The next day, however, Ap Rice, in alarm lest his
frankness might lead to his assassination, wrote to
beg his master to be cautious : —
“ Forasmuch as the said Mr. Doctor is of such acquaint-
ance and familiarity with many rufflers and serving men, . . .
I having commonly no great assistance with me when I go
abroad, might take perchance irrevocable harm of him or
his ere I were aware. Please keep secret what I have said .” 2
Ap Rice himself had been in difficulty, and
Legh had exposed him, for he admitted being “ so
abashed” at the accusation he could make no de-
fence. He had, also, certainly done something which
put him in the power of Cromwell, for he wrote : I
know “ from my own experience how deadly it is for
any man to incur your displeasure, which I would
not wish for my greatest enemy .” 3
The testimony of such witnesses would be of doubt-
ful value, even had they expressed themselves freely;
but the government only tolerated one form of re-
port. A good example of the discipline enforced
is to be found in Layton’s correspondence. He in-
1 Cal ix. No. 622. In the Calendar the letter is condensed. The
extract is given m full m Gasquet, 1. 261, 262.
2 Ibid. , No. 630. In full in Gasquet, x. 263.
* Ibid., No. 630.
236
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
cautiously praised the Abbot of Glastonbury, and was
reprimanded by Cromwell, for he wrote to excuse
himself : —
“ Whereas I understand by Mr. Pollard you much mar-
vel why I would ... so greatly praise ... the abbot of
Glaston. ... So that my excessive and indiscrete praise
. . . must needs now redound to my great folly and untruth,
and cannot . . . but much diminish my credit towards his
majesty, and even so to your lordship. . . . And although
they be all false, feigned, flattering hypocritical knaves, as
undoubtedly there is none other of that sort I must there-
fore now at this my necessity, most humbly beseech your
lordship to pardon me for that my folly then committed . . .
and of your goodness to mitigate the king’s highness majesty
m the premisses.” 1
The charges made by the visitors are of a kind
notoriously difficult to prove, even with ample time,
and with trained investigators Cromwell’s examina-
tion was carried on by men of small worth, and in hot
haste; no opportunity was given for more than a
cursory inspection of the premises and the inmates : —
^This day we leave Bath for Kensam, where we shall
make an end by Tuesday, and then go on toward Maiden
Bradley, within two miles of which is a charterhouse called
Wittame, and Bruton Abbey seven miles, and Glastonbury
seven miles. ... If you tarry with the king eight days we
shall dispatch all the houses above named.” 2
The visitation began in August, 1535, and ended
in February, 1536 During these six months, four
or five men, often travelling together, undertook to
examine one hundred and fifty-five houses scattered
1 Henry VIIL and the English Monasteries , 1. 439.
2 Cal. ix. No. 42.
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS
all over England. “ To judge by the proportion in
Yorkshire,” says Mr. Gairdner, “the visitors examined
only about four out of ten .” 1 So far as can be ascer-
tained, the evidence upon which the reports were
based was generally of the flimsiest kind , either the
scandal of some discontented monk or nun, or the
tattle of servants. There was a striking instance of
this at a nunnery in Chicksand, where Layton ac-
cused two nuns of incontinence, although “the two
prioresses would not confess this, neither the parties,
nor any of the nuns, but one old beldame .” 2
When nothing could be elicited, the accused were
deemed in a conspiracy. At Newark the house
seemed well ordered, and nothing questionable ap-
peared on the surface, therefore Layton charged the
monks with being “confederyde,” but he added that
he would object various horrible crimes against them,
“which I have learnt from others. What I shall find
I cannot tell.” 3
Where silence was taken as confession, the nuns
especially fared ill Very generally they were too
frightened, or too disgusted, to answer Even if such
evidence were uncontradicted, no great weight could
attach to it, but it happens that there is much on the
other side Not to speak of the episcopal visitations,
which were carried on as part of the discipline of the
Church, Henry's own government subsequently ap-
pointed boards of commissioners composed of country
gentlemen, and these boards, which made examina-
tions at leisure in five counties, formed conclusions
generally favourable to the ecclesiastics. Two ex-
1 Cal. x. pref. xlv. note 2 Ibid, , ix. No. 1005,
8 Ibid., ix. No. 1005.
238 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
amples will suffice to show the discrepancy between
the views of the men whom Cromwell did, and did
not control. At Geradon in Leicestershire, Crom-
welFs board reported a convent of White Cistercians,
which contained five monks addicted to sodomy with
ten boys . 1 The second board described the same
corporation as “ of good conversation, and God's ser-
vice well maintained .” 2
At Grace Dieu two nuns were charged with incon-
tinence . 3 The country gentlemen found there only
fifteen White Nuns of Saint Austin, “of good and
virtuous conversation and living .” 4
No one familiar with the development of police
during the later Middle Ages, could have much doubt
that, on the whole, the discipline of the convents
would correspond pretty accurately with the prevail-
ing tone of society, and that, although asceticism and
enthusiasm might have declined since the twelfth
century, subordination to authority would have in-
creased with the advance of centralization. Rebel-
lious monks, like those who tried to murder Abelard,
would certainly have been rarer at the time of the
Reformation than at the opening of the crusades.
The crime of the English monks, like the crime of
the Templars, was defenceless wealth ; and, like the
Templars, they fared hardly in proportion to their
devotion and their courage. The flexible and the
corrupt, who betrayed their trust, received pensions
or promotion ; the Carthusians, against whose stern
enthusiasm torments were powerless, perished as their
predecessors had perished in the field of Saint Antoine.
1 Cal x No. 364. 8 Ibid , No. 364.
s Ibid, No. 1x91. i Ihd, f No. 1 191.
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS 239
The attack of Cromwell's hirelings resembled the
onslaught of an invading army. The convents fared
like conquered towns ; the shrines were stripped and
the booty heaped on carts, as at the sack of Con-
stantinople. Churches were desecrated, windows
broken, the roofs stripped of lead, the bells melted,
the walls sold for quarries Europe overflowed with
vestments .and altar ornaments, while the libraries
were destroyed. Toward the end of 1539 Legh
reached Durham, and the purification of the sanct-
uary of Saint Cuthbert may be taken as an example
of the universal spoliation : —
“ After the spoil of his ornaments and jewels, coming
nearer to his sacred body, thinking to have found noth-
ing but dust and bones, and finding the chest that he did
he in, very strongly bound with iron, then the goldsmith
did take a great forge-hammer of a smith, and did break
the said chest open.
“ And when they had opened the chest, they found him
lying whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as
it had been a fortnight’s growth, and all his vestments upon
him, as he was accustomed to say mass withall, and his
meet wand of gold lying beside him.
“Then, when the goldsmith did perceive that he had
broken one of his legs, when he did break open the chest,
he was very sorry for it and did cry, * Alas, I have broken
one of his legs.*
“Then Dr. Henley [one of the commissioners] hearing
him say so, did call upon him, and did bid him cast down
his bones.” 1
By the statute of 1536, only those convents were
suppressed which were worth less than £ 200 a year,
or which, within twelve months after the passage of
1 Jhtes of Durham , Surtees Soc., 86 .
240
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
the act, should be granted to the king by the abbot
This legislation spared the mitred abbeys, and as long
as any conventual property remained undivided, the
land-owners kept Cromwell in office, not feeling, per-
haps, quite sure of their capacity to succeed alone.
In 1539 ft had proved impossible to force the three
great abbots of Glastonbury, Reading, and Colchester
into a surrender to the Crown, and accordingly Crom-
well devised an act to vest in Henry such conventual
lands as should be forfeited through attainder Then
he indicted the abbots for treason, and thus sought
to bring the estates they represented constructively
within the statute The fate of Abbot Whiting, whom
Layton incautiously praised, will do for all He was
eighty when he died, and his martyrdom is unusually
interesting, as it laid the fortune of the great house
of Bedford, one of the most splendid of modern
dukedoms.
The commissioners came unexpectedly, and found
the old monk at a grange at Sharpham, about a mile
from Glastonbury. On September 19 they appre-
hended him, searched his apartment, and finding
nothing likely to be of service, sent him up to Lon-
don for Cromwell to deal with, though he was “ very
weak and sickly ” Cromwell lodged him m the
Tower, and examined him, apparently in a purely
perfunctory fashion, for the government had decided
on its policy. The secretary of state simply jotted
down a memorandum to see “that the evidence be
well sorted and the indictments well drawn,” and left
the details of the murder to John Russell, a man
thoroughly to be trusted. Cromwell's only anxiety
was about the indictments, and he had " the king’s
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CONVENTS
learned counsel ” with him “ all day ” discussing the
matter. Finally they decided, between them, that it
would be better to proceed at Glaston, and Whiting
was sent to Somersetshire to be dealt with by the
progenitor of a long line of opulent Whig land-
lords.
In superintending the trial, Russell showed an en-
ergy and judgment which won its reward On the
14th of November, when the invalid reached Wells,
he wrote that he had provided for him “ as worship-
ful a jury as was ever charged here these many
years. And there was never seen in these parts
so great appearance as were here at this present
time, and never better willing to serve the king.” 1
Russell wasted no time. He arranged for the trial
one day and the execution the next “The Abbot
of Glastonbury was arraigned, and the next day put
to execution with two other of his monks, for the
robbing of Glastonbury church.” 2
He had the old man bound on a hurdle and
dragged to the top of Tor Hill, “but . . he would
confess no more gold nor silver, nor any other thing
more than he did before your Lordship in the Tower.
. . . And thereupon took his death very patiently,
and his head and body bestowed in like manner as
I certified your lordship in my last letter.” 3 “One
quarter standeth at Wells, another at Bath, and at
Ilchester and Bridgewater the rest, And his head
upon the abbey gate at Glaston.” 4
On the 17th of the following April, Henry created
Cromwell Earl of Essex, preparatory to slaughtering
1 Wright, 260. s Wright, 261, 262.
a Ellis, 1st Series, 11. 99. 4 Ellis, 1st Series, 11. 99.
242
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP. VIII.
him. Within two months the new earl was arrested
by his bitterest enemy, the Duke of Norfolk, the
chief of the landed interest; on the 28th of July
he lost his head on Tower Hill, and his colossal
fortune fed the men who had divided the body of
Whiting.
CHAPTER IX
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
Like primitive Rome, England, during the Middle
Ages, had an unusually homogeneous population of
farmers, who made a remarkable infantry Not that
the cavalry was defective ; on the contrary, from top
to bottom of society, every man was a soldier, and the
aristocracy had excellent fighting qualities. Many
of the kings, like Coeur-de-Lion, Edward III., and
Henry V,, ranked among the ablest commanders of
their day ; the Black Prince has always been a hero
of chivalry; and earls and barons could be named
by the score who were famous in the Hundred Years*
War.
Yet, although the English knights were a martial
body, there is nothing to show that, on the whole,
they surpassed the French The English infantry
won Cr6cy and Poitiers, and this infantry, which
was long the terror of Europe, was recruited from
among the small farmers who flourished m Great
Britain until they were exterminated by the advance
of civilization.
As long as the individual could at all withstand the
attack of the centralized mass of society, England
remained a hot-bed for breeding this species of man.
A mediaeval king had no means of collecting a regu-
244
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
lar revenue by taxation , ne was only the chief of
the free-men, and his estates were supposed to suffice
for his expenditure The revenue the land yielded
consisted of men, not money, and to obtain men,
the sovereign granted his domains to his nearest
friends, who, in their turn, cut their manors into as
many farms as possible, and each farmer paid his
rent with his body.
A baron’s strength lay in the band of spears which
followed his banner, and therefore he subdivided his
acres as much as possible, having no great need of
money. Himself a farmer, he cultivated enough of
his fief to supply his wants, to provide his table, and
'to furnish his castle, but, beyond this, all he kept to
himself was loss Under such a system money con-
tracts played a small part, and economic competition
was unknown
The tenants were free-men, whose estates passed
from father to son by a fixed tenure , no one could
underbid them with their landlord, and no capitalist
could rum them by depressing wages, for the serfs
formed the basis of society, and these serfs were like-
wise land-owners In theory, the villains may have
held at will; but in fact they were probably the
descendants, or at least the representatives, of the
colom of the Empire, and a base tenure could be
proved by the roll of the manorial court Thus even
the weakest were protected by custom, and there was
no competition in the labour market.
The manor was the social unit, and, as the country
was sparsely settled, waste spaces divided the manors
from each other, and these wastes came to be con-
sidered as commons appurtenant to the domain in
IX,
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
245
which the tenants of the manor had vested rights.
The extent of these rights varied from generation to
generation, but substantially they amounted to a priv-
ilege of pasture, fuel, or the like ; aids which, though
unimportant to large property owners, were vital
when the margin of income was narrow
During the old imaginative age, before centraliza-
tion gathered headway, .little inducement existed to
pilfer these domains, since there was room in plenty,
and the population increased slowly, if at all The
moment the form of competition changed, these con-
ditions were reversed. Precisely when a money rent
became a more potent force than armed men, may be
hard to determine, but certainly that time had come
when Henry VIII mounted the throne, for then cap-
italistic farming was on the increase, and speculation
in real estate already caused sharp distress. At that
time the establishment of a police had destroyed the
value of the retainer, and competitive rents had gen-
erally supplanted military tenures Instead of tend-
ing to subdivide, as in an age of decentralization, land
consolidated in the hands of the economically strong,
and capitalists systematically enlarged their estates
by enclosing the commons, and depriving the yeomen
of their immemorial rights
The sixteenth-century landlords were a type quite
distinct from the ancient feudal gentry. As a class
they were gifted with the economic, and not with the
martial instinct, and they throve on competition.
Their strength lay in their power of absorbing the
property of their weaker neighbours under the pro-
tection of an overpowering police
Everything tended to accelerate consolidation,
246
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
especially the rise in the value of money. While,
even with the debasement of the coin, the price of
cereals did not advance, the growth of manufactures
had caused wool to double in value “We need not
therefore be surprised at finding that the temptation
to sheep-farming was almost irresistible, and that
statute after statute failed to arrest the tendency.” 1
The conversion of arable land into pasture led, of
course, to wholesale eviction, and by 1515 the suffer-
ing had become so acute that details were given in
acts of Parliament. Places where two hundred per-
sons had lived, by growing corn and grain, were left
desolate, the houses had decayed, and the churches
fallen into ruin. 2 The language of these statutes
proves that the descriptions of contemporaries were
not exaggerated.
“ For I myselfe know many townes and villages sore de-
cayed, for yt where as m times past there wer in some town
an hundred householdes there remain not now thirty; m
some fifty, ther are not now ten ; yea (which is more to be
lamented) I knowe townes so wholly decayed, that there is
neyther sticke nor stone standyng as they use to say.
“ Where many men had good lyumges, and mayntemed
hospitality, able at times to helpe the kyng in his waires, and
to susteyne other charges, able also to helpe their pore neigh-
bours, and vertuously to bring up theyr children in Godly
letters and good scyences, nowe sheepe and conies deuoure
altogether, no man inhabiting the aforesayed places. Those
beastes which were created of God for the nouryshment of
man doe nowe deuoure man. . . . And the cause of all
thys wretchednesse and beggery m the common weale are
the gredy Gentylmen, whyche are shepemongers and gras-
1 Agriculture and Prices , iv. 64.
a 6 Henry VIII., c. sj 7 Henry VIII., c. 1.
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
247
yars. Whyle they study for their owne priuate commoditie,
the common weale is lyke to decay. Since they began to
be shepe maysters and feders of cattell, we neyther had
vyttayle nor cloth of any reasonable pryce. No meruayle,
for these forstallars of the market, as they use to saye, haue
gotten all thynges so into theyr handes, that the poore man
muste eyther bye it at their pryce, or else miserably starue
for hongar, and wretchedly dye for colde.” 1
The reduction of the acreage in tillage must have
lessened the crop of the cereals, and accounts for
their slight rise in value during the second quarter
of the sixteenth century. Nevertheless this rise gave
the farmer no relief, as, under competition, rents
advanced faster than prices, and in the generation
which reformed the Church, the misery of yeomen
had become extreme. In 1549 Latimer preached a
sermon, which contains a passage often quoted, but
always interesting : —
"Furthermore, if the king’s honour, as some men say,
standeth m the great multitude of people ; then these graz-
iers, inclosers, and rent-rearers, are hmderers of the king’s
honour. For where as have been a great many household-
ers and inhabitants, there is now but a shepherd and his
dog. . . .
“ My father was yeoman, and had no lands of his own,
only he had a farm of three or four pound by year at the
uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a
dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep ; and my
mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the
king a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to
the place that he should receive the king’s wages. I can
remember that I buckled his harness when he went unto
1 Jewel of Joy, Becon. Also England in the Reign of Henry VIII*
Early Eng. Text Soc., Extra Ser,, No. xxxii, p. 75.
248
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not
been able to have preached before the king’s majesty now.
“ He married my sisters with five pound, or twenty nobles
apiece , so that he brought them up m godliness and fear of
God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some
alms he gave to the poor. And all this he did of the said farm,
where he that now hath it payeth sixteen pound by year, or
more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for him-
self, nor for his. children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.” 1
The small proprietor suffered doubly : he had to
meet the competition of large estates, and to endure
the curtailment of his resources through the enclosure
of the commons The effect was to pauperize the
yeomanry and lesser gentry, and before the Reforma-
tion the homeless poor had so multiplied that, in 1530,
Parliament passed the first of a series of vagrant acts. 2
At the outset the remedy applied was comparatively
mild, for able-bodied mendicants were only to be
whipped until they were bloody, returned to their
domicile, and there whipped until they put them-
selves to labour. As no labour was supplied, the
legislation failed, and in 1537 the emptying of the
convents brought matters to a climax. Meanwhile
Parliament tried the experiment of killing off the
unemployed, by the second act vagrants were first
mutilated and then hanged as felons 3
In 1547, when Edward VI. was crowned, the great
crisis had reached its height The silver of Potosi
had not yet brought relief, the currency was in chaos,
labour was disorganized, and the nation seethed with
the discontent which broke out two years later m
1 First Sermon before Edward VI, Sermons of Bishop Latimer ,
ed. of Parker Soc,, 100, 101.
* 22 Henry VIII,, c 12.
8 27 Henry VIII., c. 25.
IX,
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
249
rebellion The land-owners held absolute power, and
before they yielded to the burden of feeding the
starving, they seriously addressed themselves to the
task of extermination. The preamble of the third
act stated that, in spite of the “ great travel ” and
“ godly statutes ” of Parliament, pauperism had not
diminished, therefore any vagrant brought before two
justices was to be adjudged the slave of his captor
for two years He might be compelled to work by
beating, chaining, or otherwise, be fed on bread and
water, or refuse meat, and confined by a ring of iron
about his neck, arms or legs. For his first attempt
at escape, his slavery became perpetual, for his
second, he was hanged. 1
Even as late as 1591, in the midst of the great
expansion which brought prosperity to all Europe,
and when the monks and nuns, cast adrift by the
suppression of the convents, must have mostly died,
beggars so swarmed that at the funeral of the Earl
of Shrewsbury “ there were by the report of such as
served the dole unto them, the number of 8000. And
they thought that there were almost as many more
that could not be served, through their unruliness.
Yea, the press was so great that divers were slain
and many hurt. And further it is reported of cred-
ible persons, that well estimated the number of all
the said beggars, that they thought there were about
20,000.” It was conjectured “that all the said poor
people were abiding and dwelling within thirty miles’
compass of Sheffield.” 2
1 1 Edward VI., c 3.
2 Bnt Mus., Cole MS. xn. 41. Cited in Henry VITL and the Eng-
lish Monasteries^ Gasquet, 11 514, note.
2 SO
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
In 1 549 , just as the tide turned, insurrection blazed
out all over England. In the west a pitched battle
was fought between the peasantry and foreign mer-
cenaries, and Exeter was relieved only after a long
siege. In Norfolk the yeomen, led by one Kett,
controlled a large district for a considerable time.
They arrested the unpopular landlords, threw open
the commons they had appropriated, and ransacked
the manor houses to pay indemnities to evicted
farmers. When attacked, they fought stubbornly, and
stormed Norwich twice.
Strype described “these mutineers ” as “certain
poor men that sought to have their commons again,
by force and power taken from them ; and that a
regulation be made according to law of arable lands
turned into pasture.” 1
Cranmer understood the situation perfectly, and
though a consummate courtier, and himself a creation
of the capitalistic revolution, spoke in this way of his
patrons : —
“ And they complain much of rich men and gentlemen,
saying, that they take the commons from the poor, that they
raise the prices of all manner of things, that they rule the
poverty, and oppress them at their pleasure. . . .
“ And although here I seem only to speak against these
unlawful assemblers, yet I cannot allow those, but I must
needs threaten everlasting damnation unto them, whether
they be gentlemen or whatsoever they be, which never
cease to purchase and join house to house, and land to
land, as though they alone ought to possess and inhabit the
earth.” 1
1 EccL Mem ., u, pt. X, 260.
2 Sermon on Rebellion, Cranmer, Miscellaneous Writings and
Letters* 194-6,
IX THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN 2 $ I
Revolt against the pressure of this unrestricted
economic competition took the form of Puritanism,
of resistance to the religious organization controlled
by capital, and even in Cranmer’s time, the attitude
of the descendants of the men who formed the line
at Poitiers and Crecy was so ominous that Anglican
bishops took alarm.
“ It is reported that there be many among these unlawful
assemblies that pretend knowledge of the gospel, and will
needs be called gospellers. . . . But now I will go further
to speak somewhat of the great hatred which divers of these
seditious persons do bear against the gentlemen; which
hatred m many is so outrageous, that they desire nothing
more than the spoil, rum, and destruction of them that be
rich and wealthy.” 1
Somerset, who owed his elevation to the accident
of being the brother of Jane Seymour, proved un-
equal to the crisis of 1449, and was supplanted by
John Dudley, now better remembered as Duke of
Northumberland. Dudley was the strongest mem-
ber of the new aristocracy His father, Edmund
Dudley, had been the celebrated lawyer who rose
to eminence as the extortioner of Henry VII., and.
whom Henry VIII. executed, as an act of popularity,
on his accession. John, beside inheriting his father's
financial ability, had a certain aptitude for war, and
undoubted courage; accordingly he rose rapidly.
He and Cromwell understood each other; he flat-
tered Cromwell, and Cromwell lent him money. 2
1 Sermon on Rebellion, Cranmer, Miscellaneous Writings and
Letters, 195, 196.
2 Cal. ix. No. 193.
2$2 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP,
Strype has intimated that Dudley had strong mo-
tives for resisting the restoration of the commons. 1
In 1547 he was created Earl of Warwick, and m
1549 suppressed Kett’s rebellion This military
success brought him to the head of the State; he
thrust Somerset aside, and took the title of Duke
of Northumberland His son was equally distin-
guished. He became the favourite of Queen Eliza-
beth, who created him Earl of Leicester , but,
though an expert courtier, he was one of the most
incompetent generals whom even the Tudor landed
aristocracy ever put in the field
The disturbances of the reign of Edward VI did
not ripen into revolution, probably because of the
relief given by rising prices after 1550; but, though
they fell short of actual civil war, they were suffi-
ciently formidable to terrify the aristocracy into
abandoning their policy of killing off the surplus
population. In 1552 the first statute was passed 2
looking toward the systematic relief of paupers.
Small farmers prospered greatly after 1660, for
prices rose strongly, very much more strongly than
rents, nor was it until after the beginning of the
seventeenth century, when rents again began to ad-
vance, that the yeomanry once more grew restive.
Cromwell raised his Ironsides from among the great-
grandchildren of the men who stormed Norwich with
Kett.
“ I had a very worthy friend then ; and he was a very
noble person, and I know his memory is very grateful to
all, — Mr. John Hampden. At my first going out into this
1 EccL Mem., 11 pt. 1, 152.
2 5 and 6 Edw, VI., c. 2.
ix THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN 253
engagement, I saw our men were beaten at every hand.
I did indeed ; and desired him that he would make some
additions to my Lord Essex’s army, of some new regiments ;
and I told him I would be serviceable to him m bringing
such men m as I thought had a spirit that would do some-
thing in the work. This is very true that I tell you , God
knows I lie not. ‘ Your troops,’ said I, e are most of them
old decayed serving-men, and tapsters, and such kind of
fellows, and/ said I, ‘their troops are gentlemen’s sons,
younger sons and persons of quality do you think that the
spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to
encounter gentlemen, that have honour and courage and
resolution m them?’ . . . Truly I did tell him, ‘You
must get men of a spirit ... a spirit that is likely to go
on as far as gentlemen will go , — or else you will be beaten
still.
“He was a wise and worthy person; and he did think
that I talked a good notion, but an impracticable one
Truly I told him I could do somewhat in it, . . . and truly
I must needs say this to you, ... I raised such men as
had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience
of what they did , and from that day forward, I must say to
you, they were never beaten, and wherever they were en-
gaged against the enemy, they beat continually .” 1
Thus, by degrees, the pressure of intensifying cen-
tralization split the old homogeneous population of
England into classes, graduated according to their
economic capacity Those without the necessary
instinct sank into agricultural day labourers, whose
lot, on the whole, has probably been somewhat worse
than that of ordinary slaves. The gifted, like the
Howards, the Dudleys, the Cecils, and the Boleyns,
rose to be rich nobles and masters of the State.
Between the two accumulated a mass of bold and
1 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches , Carlyle, Speech XI.
254
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
needy adventurers, who were destined finally not only
to dominate England, but to shape the destinies of
the world
One section of these, the shrewder and less ven-
turesome, gravitated to the towns, and grew rich as
merchants, like the founder of the Osborn family,
whose descendant became Duke of Leeds; or like
the celebrated Josiah Child, who, in the reign of
William III., controlled the whole eastern trade of
the kingdom. The less astute and the more martial
took to the sea, and as slavers, pirates, and con-
querors, built up England's colonial empire, and
established her maritime supremacy. Of this class
were Drake and Blake, Hawkins, Raleigh, and Clive.
For several hundred years after the Norman con-
quest, Englishmen showed little taste for the ocean,
probably because sufficient outlet for their energies
existed on land. In the Middle Ages the commerce
of the island was mostly engrossed by the Merchants
of the Steelyard, an offshoot of the Hanseatic league;
while the great explorers of the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries were usually Italians or Portu-
guese; men like Columbus, Vespucius, Vasco-da-
Gama, or Magellan. This state of things lasted,
however, only until economic competition began to
ruin the small farmers, and then the hardiest and
boldest race of Europe were cast adrift, and forced
to seek their fortunes in strange lands.
For the soldier or the adventurer, there was no
opening in England after the battle of Flodden.
A peaceful and inert bourgeoisie more and more
supplanted the ancient martial baronage; their rep-
resentatives shrank from campaigns like those of
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
255
Richard I., the Edwards, and Henry V., and there-
fore, for the evicted farmer, there was nothing but
the far-off continents of America and Asia, and to
these he directed his steps.
The lives of the admirals tell the tale on every
page Drake’s history is now known. His family
belonged to the lesser Devon gentry, but fallen so
low that his father gladly apprenticed him as ship’s
boy on a channel coaster, a life of almost intoler-
able hardship. From this humble beginning he
fought his way, by dint of courage and genius, to
be one of England’s three greatest seamen ; and
Blake and Nelson, the other two, were of the same
blood.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert was pf the same west coun-
try stock as Drake, Frobisher was a poor York-
shire man, and Sir Walter Raleigh came from a
ruined house. No less than five knightly branches
of Raleigh’s family once throve together in the west-
ern counties; but disaster came with the Tudors,
and Walter’s father fell into trouble through his
Puritanism. Walter himself early had to face the
world, and carved out his fortune with his sword.
He served in France in the religious wars; after-
ward, perhaps, in Flanders ; then, through Gilbert, he
obtained a commission in Ireland, but finally drifted
to Elizabeth’s court, where he took to buccaneering,
and conceived the idea of colonizing America.
A profound gulf separated these adventurers from
the landed capitalists, for they were of an extreme
martial type ; a type hated and feared by the nobility.
With the exception of the years of the Common-
wealth, the landlords controlled England from the
256 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
Reformation to the revolution of 1688, a period of
one hundred and fifty years, and, during that long
interval, there is little risk in asserting that the
aristocracy did not produce a single soldier or sailor
of more than average capacity The difference
between the royal and the parliamentary armies
was as great as though they had been recruited
from different races. Charles had not a single
officer of merit, while it is doubtful if any force
has ever been better led than the troops organized
by Cromwell
Men like Drake, Blake, and Cromwell were among
the most terrible warriors of the world, and they
were distrusted and feared by an oligarchy which
felt instinctively its inferiority in arms. Therefore,
in Elizabeth’s reign, politicians like the Cecils took
care that the great seamen should have no voice in
public affairs And though these men defeated the
Armada, and though England owed more to them
than to all the rest of her population put together,
not one reached the peerage, or was treated with
confidence and esteem Drake’s fate shows what
awaited them Like all his class, Drake was hot
for war with Spain, and from time to time he was
unchained, when fighting could not be averted, but
his policy was rejected, his operations more nearly
resembled those of a pirate than of an admiral, and
when he died, he died in something like disgrace
The aristocracy even made the false position in
which they placed their sailors a source of profit, for
they forced them to buy pardon for their victories
by surrendering the treasure they had won with their
blood, Fortescue actually had to interfere to defend
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
257
Raleigh and Hawkins from Elizabeth’s rapacity In
1592 Borough sailed in command of a squadron
fitted out by the two latter, with some contribution
from the queen and the city of London Borough cap-
tured the carack, the Madre-de-Dios, whose pepper
alone Burleigh estimated at .£102,000. The cargo
proved worth £141,000, and of this Elizabeth’s share,
according to the rule of distribution in use, amounted
to one-tenth, or £14,000 She demanded £80,000,
and allowed Raleigh and Hawkins, who had spent
£34,000, only £36,000 Raleigh bitterly contrasted
the difference made between himself a soldier, and a
peer, or a London speculator. " I was the cause
that all this came to the Queen, and that the King of
Spaine spent 3O0,000 h the last yere. . I that ad-
ventured all my estate, lose of my principall. ... I
tooke all the care and paines ; . they only sate
still ... for which double is given to them, and less
then mine own to me.” 1
Raleigh was so brave he could not comprehend
that his talent was his peril He fancied his capacity
for war would bring him fame and fortune, and it led
him to the block. While Elizabeth lived, the admira-
tion of the woman for the hero probably saved him,
but he never even entered the Privy Council, and of
real power he had none. The sovereign the oligar-
chy chose was James, and James imprisoned and
then slew him Nor was Raleigh’s fate peculiar, for,
through timidity, the Cavaliers conceived an almost
equal hate of many soldiers. They dug up the bones
of Cromwell, they tried to murder William III., and
1 Haleigh to Burleigh, Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, Edwards, ii. 76,
letter xxxjv.
s
258 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
they dragged down Marlborough in the midst of
victory. Such were the new classes into which
economic competition divided the people of England
during the sixteenth century, and the Reformation
was only one among many of the effects of this
profound social revolution.
In the first fifty-three years of the sixteenth cen-
tury, England passed through two distinct phases
of ecclesiastical reform; the earlier, under Henry,
when the conventual property was appropriated by
the rising aristocracy ; the later, under Edward, when
portions of the secular endowments were also seized.
Each period of spoliation was accompanied by innova-
tions in doctrine, and each was followed by a reaction,
the final one, under Mary, taking the form of recon-
ciliation with Rome. Viewed in connection with the
insurrections, the whole movement can hardly be
distinguished from an armed conquest of the imagi-
native by the economic section of society ; a conquest
which produced a most curious and interesting devel-
opment of a new clerical type.
During the Middle Ages, the hierarchy had been a
body of miracle-workers, independent of, and at first
superior to, the State. This great corporation had
subsisted upon its own resources, and had generally
been controlled by men of the ecstatic temperament,
of whom Saint Anselm is, perhaps, the most perfect
example. After the conquest at the Reformation,
these conditions changed. Having lost its indepen-
dence, the priesthood lapsed into an adjunct of the
civil power ; it then became reorganized upon an
economic basis, and gradually turned into a salaried
class, paid to inculcate obedience to the represents-
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
259
tive of an oligarchy which controlled the national
revenue. Perhaps, in all modern history, there is
no more striking example of the rapid and complete
manner in which, under favourable circumstances,
one type can supersede another, than the thorough-
ness with which the economic displaced the emotional
temperament, in the Anglican Church, during the
Tudor dynasty. The mental processes of the new
pastors did not differ so much in degree as in kind
from those of the old
Although the spoliations of Edward are' less well
remembered than those of his father, they were
hardly less drastic They began with the estates of
the chantries and guilds, and rapidly extended to all
sorts of property. In the Middle Ages, one of the
chief sources of revenue of the sacred class had been
their prayers for souls in purgatory, and all large
churches contained chapels, many of them richly en-
dowed, for the perpetual celebration of masses for
the dead ; in England and Wales more than a thou-
sand such chapels existed, whose revenues were often
very valuable. These were the chantries, which van-
ished with the imaginative age which created them,
and the guilds shared the same fate.
Before economic competition had divided men into
classes according to their financial capacity, all crafts-
men possessed capital, as all agriculturists held land.
The guild established the craftsman’s social status ;
as a member of a trade corporation he was governed
by regulations fixing the number of hands he might
employ, the amount of goods he might produce, and
the quality of his workmanship ; on the other hand,
the guild regulated the market, and ensured a de-
260
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
mand Tradesmen, perhaps, did not easily grow
rich, but they as seldom became poor
With centralization life changed. Competition
sifted the strong from the weak ; the former waxed
wealthy, and hired hands at wages, the latter lost all
but the ability to labour; and, when the corporate
body of producers had thus disintegrated, nothing
stood between the common property and the men
who controlled the engine of the law. By the i
Edward VI,, c. 14, all the possessions of the schools,
colleges, and guilds of England, except the colleges
of Oxford and Cambridge and the guilds of London,
were conveyed to the king, and the distribution thus
begun extended far and wide, and has been forcibly
described by Mr Blunt . —
“ They tore off the lead from the roofs, and wrenched out
the brasses from the floors. The books they despoiled of
their costly covers, and then sold them for waste paper.
The gold and silver plate they melted down with copper
and lead, to make a coinage so shamefully debased as was
never known before or since m England. The vestments
of altars and priests they turned into table-covers, carpets,
and hangings, when not very costly ; and when worth more
money than usual, they sold them to foreigners, not caring
who used them for i superstitious 1 purposes, but caring to
make the best f bargains * they could of their spoil. Even
the very surplices and altar linen would fetch something,
and that too was seized by their covetous hands.” 1
These “covetous hands ” were the privy council-
lors. Henry had not intended that any member of
the board should have precedence, but the king’s
body was not cold before Edward Seymour began an
1 The Reformation of the Church of England, 11 . 68.
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
26l
intrigue to make himself protector To consolidate
a party behind him, he opened his administration by
distributing all the spoil he could lay hands on , and
Mr Froude estimated that “on a computation most
favourable to the council, estates worth m mod-
ern currency about five millions ” of pounds, were
“appropriated — I suppose I must not say stolen —
and divided among themselves.” 1 At the head of
this council stood Cranmer, who took his share with-
out scruple. Probably Froude’s estimate is far too
low , for though Seymour, as Duke of Somerset, had,
like Henry, to meet imperative claims which drained
his purse, he yet built Somerset House, the most
sumptuous palace of London
Seymour was put to death by Dudley when he rose
to power by his military success in Norfolk Dudley
as well as Cromwell was fitted for the emergency in
which he lived, bold, able, unscrupulous and ener-
getic, his party hated but followed him, because with-
out him they saw no way to seize the property they
coveted. He too, like Cromwell, allied himself with
the evangelical clergy, and under Edward the ortho-
doxy of the “Six Articles ” gave way to the doctrine
of Geneva Even in 1548 Calvin had been able to
write to Somerset, thanking God that, through his
wisdom, the “ pure truth ” was preached ; 2 but when
Dudley administered the government as Duke of
Northumberland, bishops did not hesitate to teach
that the dogma of the “ carnal presence ” in the sac-
rament “ maintameth that beastly kind of cruelty of
the f Anthropophagi/ that is, the devourers of man’s
1 History of England, v. 432.
3 Gorham’s Reformation Gleanings , 61.
262
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
flesh : for it is a more cruel thing to devour a quick
man, than to slay him.” 1
Dudley resembled Henry and Norfolk in being
naturally conservative, for he died a Catholic ; but
with them all, money was the supreme object, and as
they lacked the physical force to plunder alone, they
were obliged to conciliate the Radicals. These were
represented by Knox, and to Knox the duke paid
assiduous court The Scotchman began preaching
in Berwick in 1549, but the government soon brought
him to London, and in 1551 made him a royal chap-
lain, and, as chaplain, he was called upon to approve
the Forty-two Articles of 1552. This he could do
conscientiously, as they contained the dogmas of
election and predestination, original sin, and justifica-
tion by faith, beside a denial of “ the reall and bodilie
presence ... of Chnstes fleshe, and bloude, in the
Sacramente of the Lordes Supper ”
Dudley tried hard to buy Knox, and offered him
the See of Rochester ; but the duke excited the deep-
est distrust and dislike in the preacher, who called
him “that wretched and miserable Northumberland.”
He rejected the preferment, and indeed, from the
beginning, bad blood seems to have lain between the
Calvinists and the court. Writing at the beginning
of 1554, Knox expressed his opinion of the reform-
ing aristocracy in emphatic language, beginning with
Somerset, “who became so cold in hearing Godis
Word, that the year befoir his last apprehensioun, he
wald ga visit his masonis, and wald not dainyie him-
self to ga frome his gallerie to his hall for heiring of
1 Ridley’s disputation at Oxford in 1554, Acts and Monuments , vi.
474 -
IX. THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN 263
a sermone .” 1 Afterward matters grew worse, for
“the haill Counsaile had said, Thay wald heir no mo
of thair sermonis : thay wer but indifferent fellowis ;
(yea, and sum of thame eschameit not to call thame
pratting knaves.) ” 2
Finally, just before Edward’s death the open
rupture came Knox had a supreme contempt and
antipathy for the Lord Treasurer, Paulet, Marquis
of Winchester, whom he called a “ crafty fox ”
During Edward’s life, jeered Knox, “who was moste
bolde to crye, Bastarde, bastarde, incestuous bas-
tarde, Mary shall never rule over us,” and now that
Mary is on the throne it is to her Paulet “ crouches
and kneeleth .” 3 In the last sermon he preached
before the king he let loose his tongue, and probably
he would have quitted the court, even had the reign
continued. In this sermon Dudley was Ahithophel,
Paulet, Shebna : —
“ I made this affirmacion, That commonlye it was sene,
that the most godly princes hadde officers and chief conn-
seilours moste ungodlye, conjured enemies to Goddes true
religion, and traitours to their princes. ... Was David,
sayd I, and Ezechias, princes of great and godly giftes and
experience, abused by crafty counsailers and dissemblyng
hypocntes? What wonder is it then, that a yonge and
innocent Kinge be deceived by craftye, covetouse, wycked,
and ungodly counselours? I am greatly afrayd, that Achito-
phel be counsailer, that Judas beare the purse, and that
Sobna be scnbe, comptroller, and treasurer. This, and
somwhat more I spake that daye, not in a corner (as many
yet can wytnesse) but even before those whome my con-
science judged worthy of accusation .” 4
1 A Godly Letter to the Faithful, Works, 111. 176. 2 Ibid,, 177.
* A Faithful Admonition , Works , iii. 283. 4 Ibid , iii 281, 2 82.
264
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Knox understood the relation which men of his
stamp bore to Anglicanism. In 1549 much land yet
remained to be divided, therefore he and his like
were flattered and cajoled until Paulet and his friends
should- be strong enough to discard them. Faith, in
the hands of the monied oligarchy, became an instru-
ment of police, and, from the Reformation down-
ward, revelation has been expounded in England by
statute Hence men of the imaginative type, who
could not accept their creed with their stipend, were
at any moment m danger of being adjudged heretics,
and suffering the extreme penalty of insubordination.
Docility to lay dictation has always been the test
by which the Anglican clergy have been sifted from
Catholics and Puritans To the imaginative mind
a faith must spiing from a revelation, and a revela-
tion must be infallible and unchangeable. Truth
must be single Catholics believed their revelation
to be continuous, delivered through the mouth of
an illuminated priesthood, speaking in its corporate
capacity. Puritans held that theirs had been made
once for all, and was contained in a book. But both
Catholics and Puritans were clear that divine truth
was immutable, and that the universal Church could
not err To minds of this type, statutes regulating
the appearance of God’s body in the elements were
not only impious but absurd, and men of the priestly
temperament, whether Catholic or Puritan, have
faced death in its most appalling forms, rather than
bow down before them.
Here Fisher and Knox, Bellarmine and Calvin,
agreed. Rather than accept the royal supremacy,
the flower of the English priesthood sought poverty
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
26$
and exile, the scaffold and the stake. For this, the
aged Fisher hastened to the block on Tower Hill;
for this, Forest dangled over the embers of the
smouldering rood ; for this, the Carthusians rotted in
their noisome dens Nor were Puritans a whit be-
hind Catholics in asserting the sacerdotal dignity;
“ Erant enim blasphemi qui vocarent eum [Henricum
VIII.] summum caput ecclesiae sub Christo,” wrote
Calvin, and on this ground the Nonconformists
fought the established Church, from Elizabeth’s ac-
cession downward.
The writings of Martin Marprelate only restated an
issue which had been raised by Hildebrand five hun-
dred years before ; for the advance of centralization
had reproduced in England something of the same
conditions which prevailed at Constantinople when it
became a centre of exchanges Wherever civiliza-
tion has reached the point at which energy expresses
itself through money, faith must be subordinate to
the representative of wealth. Stephen Gardiner
understood the conditions under which he lived, and
accepted his servitude in consideration of the great
See of Winchester. With striking acuteness he
cited Justinian as a precedent for Henry : —
“Then, Sir, who did ever disallow Justinian’s fact, that
made laws concerning the glorious Trinity, and the Catholic
faith, of bishops, of men, of the clergy, of heretics, and
others, such like ?” 1
From the day of the breach with Rome, the British
priesthood sank into wage-earners, and those of the
ancient clergy who remained in the Anglican hierar-
1 On True Obedience , Heywood’s ed., 73.
266
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
chy after the Reformation, acquiesced in their posi-
tion, as appeared m all their writings, but in none,
perhaps, more strikingly than m the Formularies of
Faith of Henry VIII., where the episcopal bench
submitted their views of orthodoxy to the revision
of the secular power* —
“ And albeit, most dread and benign sovereign lord, we
do affirm by our learnings with one assent, that the said
treatise is in all points so concordant and agreeable to holy
scripture, as we trust your majesty shall receive the same as
a thing most sincerely and purely handled, to the glory of
God, your grace’s honour, the unity of your people, the
which things your highness, we may well see and perceive,
doth chiefly in the same desire : yet we do most humbly
submit it to the most excellent wisdom and exact judgment
of your majesty, to be recognised, overseen, and corrected,
if your grace shall find any word or sentence in it meet to
be changed, qualified, or further expounded, for the plain
setting forth of your highness’s most virtuous desire and pur-
pose m that behalf. Whereunto we shall in that case con-
form ourselves, as to our most bounden duties to God and
to your highness appertained.”
Signed by “ your highness' most humble subjects
and daily beadsmen, Thomas Cantuarien” and all
the bishops 1
A Church thus lying at the mercy of the temporal
power, became a chattel in the hands of the class
which controlled the revenue, and, from the Refor-
mation to the revolution of 1688, this class consisted
of a comparatively few great landed families, form-
ing a narrow oligarchy which guided the Crown. In
1 The Institution of a Christian Man , Preface, Formularies of
Faith of Henry VIII, Lloyd, 26.
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
267
the Middle Ages, a king had drawn his army from
his own domain. Coeur-de-Lion had his own means
of attack and defence like any other baron, only on
a larger scale. Henry VIII., on the contrary, stood
alone and helpless. As centralization advanced, the
cost of administration grew, until regular taxation
had become necessary, and yet taxes could only be
levied by Parliament The king could hardly pay
a body-guard, and such military force as existed
within the realm obeyed the landlords Had it not
been for a few opulent nobles, like Norfolk and
Shrewsbury, the Pilgrims of Grace might have
marched to London and plucked Henry from his
throne, as easily as William afterward plucked James
These landlords, together with the London trades-
men, carried Henry through the crisis of 1536, and
thereafter he lay in their hands His impotence
appeared in every act of his reign He ran the risk
and paid the price, while others fattened on the
plunder. The Howards, the Cecils, the Russells,
the Dudleys, divided the Church spoil among them-
selves, and wrung from the Crown its last penny,
so that Henry lived in debt, and Edward faced insol-
vency.
Deeply as Mary abhorred sacrilege, she dared not
ask for restitution to the abbeys. Such a step would
probably have caused her overthrow, while Elizabeth
never attempted opposition, but obeyed Cecil, the in-
carnation of the spirit of the oligarchy. The men
who formed this oligarchy were of totally different
type from anything which flourished m England in
the imaginative age. Unwarlike, for their insular
position made it possible for them to survive with-
268
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
out the martial quality, they always shrank from arms.
Nor were they numerous enough, or strong enough,
to overawe the nation even in quiet times. Accord-
ingly they generally lay inert, and only from necessity
allied themselves with some more turbulent faction.
The Tudor aristocracy were rich, phlegmatic, and
unimaginative men, in whom the other faculties were
subordinated to acquisition, and they treated their
religion as a financial investment. Strictly speaking,
the Church of England never had a faith, but vi-
brated between the orthodoxy of the “ Six Articles,”
and the Calvinism of the “ Lambeth Articles/’ accord-
ing to the exigencies of real estate. Within a single
generation, the relation Christ’s flesh and blood bore
to the bread and wine was changed five times by
royal proclamation or act of Parliament
But if creeds were alike to the new economic aris-
tocracy, it well understood the value of the pulpit as
a branch of the police of the kingdom, and from
the outset it used the clergy as part of the secular
administration On this point Cranmer was ex-
plicit 1 Elizabeth probably represented the landed
gentry more perfectly than any other sovereign, and
she told her bishops plainly that she cared little for
doctrine, but wanted clerks to keep order. She re-
marked that she had seen it said : —
u that hir Protestants themselves mishked hir, and in deede
so they doe (quoth she) for I have heard that some of them
of late have said, that I was of no religion, neither hot nor
cold, but such a one, as one day would give God the vomit.
* . . After this she wished the bishops to look unto pri-
1 See Burnet’s History of the Reformation , Records, part I. book in.
quest. 9.
IX. THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN 269
vate Conventicles, and now (quoth she) I miss my Lord of
London who looketh no better unto the Citty where every
merchant must have his schoolemaster and nightly con-
venticles.’ ’ 1
Elizabeth ruled her clergy with a rod of iron. No
priest was allowed to marry without the approbation
of two justices of the peace, beside the bishop, nor
the head of a college without the leave of the visitor.
When the Dean of St. Paul’s offended the queen in
his sermon, she told him “ to retire from that ungodly
digression and return to his text,” and Grindall was
suspended for disobedience to her orders
In Grindall’s primacy, monthly prayer meetings,
called “ prophesy ings,” came into fashion among the
clergy. For some reason these meetings gave the
government offence, and Grindall was directed to put
a stop to them. Attacked thus, in the priests’ dearest
rights, the archbishop refused Without more ado
the old prelate was suspended, nor was he pardoned
until he made submission five years later
The correspondence of the Elizabethan bishops is
filled with accounts of their thraldom. Pilkington,
among others, complained that “We are under au-
thority, and cannot make any innovation without the
sanction of the queen . . . and the only alternative
now allowed us is, whether we will bear with these
things or disturb the peace of the Church .” 2
Even ecclesiastical property continued to be seized,
where it could be taken safely ; and the story of Ely
House, although it has been denied, is authentic in
spirit From the beginning of the Reformation the
1 S P. Dam Ehz vol. 1 76, No. 69.
2 Zurich Letters, 1st Series, 287.
270
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
London palaces of the bishops had been a tempting
prize. Henry took York House for himself, Raleigh
had a lease of Durham House, and, about 1565, Sir
Christopher Hatton, whose relations with the queen
were hardly equivocal, undertook to force Bishop
Cox to convey him Ely House The bishop resisted.
Hatton applied to the queen, and she is said to have
cut the matter short thus : —
“ Proud prelate : I understand you are backward in com-
plying with your agreement, but I would have you know that
I who made you what you are can unmake you, and if you
do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by God, I will im-
mediately unfrock you. Elizabeth.”
Had the great landlords been either stronger, so
as to have controlled the House of Commons, or
more military, so as to have suppressed it, English
ecclesiastical development would have been different.
As it was, a knot of ruling families, gorged with
plunder, lay between the Catholics and the more
fortunate of the evicted yeomen, who had made
money by trade, and who hated and competed with
them. Puritans as well as Catholics sought to un-
settle titles to Church lands : —
“ It is wonderfull to see how dispitefully they write of this
matter. They call us church robbers, devourers of holly
things, cormorantes, etc. affirminge that by the lawe of god,
things once consecrated to god for the service of this
churche, belong unto him for ever. . . . *ffor my owne
pte I have some imppriations, etc. & I thanke god I keepe
them w th a good conscience, and many wold be ondone.
The law appveth us.” 1
1 7 'owchinge the hill and the booke exhibited m the Par lament 1586
for a further reformation of the Churche , S. P. Dom, Ehz 199, No. I,
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
271
Thus beset, the landed capitalists struggled hard
to maintain themselves, and, as their best defence,
they organized a body of priests to preach and teach
the divine right of primogeniture, which became the
distinctive dogma of this national church. Such at
least was the opinion of the non-jurors, who have
always ranked among the most orthodox of the
Anglican clergy, and who certainly were all who
had the constancy to suffer for their faith John
Lake, Bishop of Chichester, suspended in 1689 for
not swearing allegiance to William and Mary, on
his death-bed made the following statement: —
“That whereas I was baptized into the religion of the
Church of England, and sucked it m with my milk, I have
constantly adhered to it through the whole course of my
life, and now, if so be the will of God, shall dye m it , and
I had resolved through God’s grace assisting me to have
dyed so, though at a stake.
“And whereas that religion of the Church of England
taught me the doctrine of non-resistance and passive obe-
dience, which I have accordingly inculcated upon others,
and which I took to be the distinguishing character of the
Church of England, I adhere no less firmly and steadfastly
to that, and m consequence of it, have incurred a suspension
from the exercise of my office and expected a deprivation.” 1
In the twelfth century, the sovereign drew his
supernatural quality from his consecration by the
priesthood, in the seventeenth century, money had
already come to represent a force so predominant
that the process had become reversed, and the priest-
hood attributed its prerogative to speak in the name
of the Deity, to the interposition of the king. This
1 History of the Non-jurors, Lathbury, 50.
272
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
was the substance of the Reformation in England.
Cranmer taught that God committed to Christian
princes “the whole cure of all their subjects, as well
concerning the administration of God’s word . . .
as ... of things political”, therefore bishops, par-
sons, and vicars were ministers of the temporal ruler,
to whom he confided the ecclesiastical office, as he
confided the enforcement of order to a chief of
police. 1 As a part of the secular administration,
the main function of the Reformed priesthood was
to preach obedience to their patrons ; and the doc-
trine they evolved has been thus summed up by
Macaulay : —
“ It was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being re-
garded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of
government, with peculiar favour ; that the rule of succession
in order of primogeniture was a divine institution, anterior
to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation , that
no human power . . . could deprive a legitimate prince of
his rights ; that the authority of such a prince was necessarily
always despotic. ...” 2
In no other department of public affairs did the
landed gentry show particular energy or ability.
Their army was ineffective, their navy unequal to its
work, their finances indifferently handled, but down
to the time of their overthrow, in 1688, they were
eminently successful in ecclesiastical organization.
They chose their instruments with precision, and an
oligarchy has seldom been more adroitly served.
Macaulay was a practical politician, and Macaulay
1 See History of the Reformation , Burnet, Po cock’s ed. Records ,
part I. book lii, quest 9.
2 History of England, ch. I.
IX
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
273
rated the clergy as the chief political power under
Charles II : —
“At every important conjuncture, invectives against the
Whigs and exhortations to obey the Lord’s anointed re-
sounded at once from many thousands of pulpits ; and the
effect was formidable indeed. Of all the causes which, after
the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, produced the violent
reaction against the exclusionists, the most potent seems to
have been the oratory of the country clergy .” 1
For country squires a wage-earning clergy was
safe, and although Macaulay’s famous passage de-
scribing their fear of an army has met with contra-
diction, it probably is true : —
“In their minds a standing army was inseparably associated
with the Rump, with the Protector, with the spoliation of the
Church, with the purgation of the Universities, with the
abolition of the peerage, with the murder of the King, with
the sullen reign of the Saints, with cant and asceticism,
with fines and sequestrations, with the insults which Major
Generals, sprung from the dregs of the people, had offered
to the oldest and most honourable families of the kingdom.
There was, moreover, scarcely a baronet or a squire m the
parliament who did not owe part of his importance m his
own county to his rank m the militia. If that national force
were set aside, the gentry of England must lose much of
their dignity and influence .” 2
The work to be done by the Tudor hierarchy was
mercenary, not imaginative; therefore pastors had to
be chosen who could be trusted to labour faithfully
for wages. Perhaps no equally large and intelligent
body of men has ever been more skilfully selected
The Anglican priests, as a body, have uniformly been
1 History of England \ ch, ui 2 Ihd, t ch, vi,
T
274 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap,
true to the hand which fed them, without regard to
the principles they were required to preach A re-
markable instance of their docility, where loss of
income was the penalty for disobedience, was fur-
nished at the accession of William and Mary. Divine
right was, of course, the most sacred of Anglican
dogmas, and yet, when the clergy were commanded
to take the oath of allegiance to him whom they held
to be an usurper, as Macaulay has observed, “ some
of the strongest motives which can influence the
human mind, had prevailed. Above twenty-nine
thirtieths of the profession submitted to the law.” 1
Moreover, the landlords had the economic instinct,
bargaining accordingly, and Elizabeth bluntly told
her bishops that they must get her sober, respectable
preachers, but men who should be cheap.
“Then spake my Lord Treasurer. . . . Her Maty hath
declared unto you a marvellous great fault, in that you make
m this time of light so many lewd and unlearned minis-
ters. ... It is the Bishop of Litchfield . . . that I mean,
who made LXX ministers m one day for money, some
taylors, some shoemakers, and other craftsmen, I am sure
the greatest part of them not worthy to keep horses. Then
said the Bp. of Rochester, that may be so, for I know
one that made 7 in one day, I would every man might
beare his own burthen, some of us have the greatest wrong
that can be offred. . . . But my Lord, if you would have
none but learned preachers to be admitted into the ministery,
you must provide better livings for them. . . .
“To have learned ministers m every parish is m my judg-
ed* impossible (quoth my Ld, of Canterbury) being 13,000
parishes m Ingland, I know not how this realm should yield
so many learned preachers.
1 History of England. \ ch. xiv.
IX
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
27s
“Jesus (quoth the Queen) 13,000 it is not to be looked
for, I thinke the time hath been, there hath not been 4.
preachers m a diocesse, my meaning is not you should
make choice of learned ministers only for they are not to
be found, but of honest, sober, and wise men, and such as
can reade the scriptures and homilies well unto the people.” 1
The Anglican clergy under the Tudors and the
Stuarts were not so much priests, in the sense of the
twelfth century, as hired political retainers Macau-
lay’s celebrated description is too well known to need
full quotation: “for one who made the figure of a
gentleman, ten were mere menial servants . . . The
coarse and ignorant squire” could hire a “young
Levite ” for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds
a year. This clergyman “ might not only be the
most patient of butts and of listeners, might not only
be always ready in fine weather for bowls, and in
rainy weather for shovelboard, but might also save
the expense of a gardener, or of a groom Some-
times the reverend man nailed up the apricots ; and
sometimes he curried the coach horses.” 2
Yet, as Macaulay has also pointed out, the hierarchy
was divided into two sections, the ordinary labourers
and the managers. The latter were indispensable to
the aristocracy, since without them their machine
could hardly have been kept in motion, and these
were men of talent who demanded and received good
wages. Probably for this reason a large revenue was
reserved for the higher secular clergy, and from the
outset the policy proved successful. Many of the
ablest organizers and astutest politicians of England,
1 Queers conference upon Graunt of a Subsidy , etc , 1 584. State
Papers , Dam. Ehz., 176, No. 69. 2 History op England \ ch. in.
276
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sat
on the episcopal bench, and two of the most typical,
as well as the ablest Anglicans who ever lived, were
the two eminent bishops who led the opposing wings
of the Church when it was reformed by Henry VIII.:
Stephen Gardiner and Thomas Cranmer.
Gardiner was the son of a clothworker of Bury
Saint Edmunds, and was born about 1483. At Cam-
bridge he made himself the best civil lawyer of the
kingdom, and on meeting Wolsey, so strongly im-
pressed him with his talent that the cardinal advanced
him rapidly, and in January 1529 sent him to nego-
tiate for the divorce at Rome. Nobody doubts that
to the end of his life Gardiner remained a sincere
Catholic, but above all else he was a great Anglican.
Becoming secretary to the king in June, 1529, as
Wolsey was tottering to his fall, he laboured to
bring the University of Cambridge to the royal
side, and he also devoted himself to Anne until he
obtained the See of Winchester, when his efforts for
the divorce slackened. He even went so far as to
assure Clement that he had repented, and meant to
quit the court, but notwithstanding he “ bore up the
laps ” of Anne’s robe at her coronation.
In 1535 the ways parted, a decision could not be
deferred, he renounced Rome and preached his ser-
mon "de vera Obedientia,” in which he recognized
in Henry the supremacy of a Byzantine emperor.
The pang this act cost him lasted till hedied, and
he told the papal nuncio “ he made this book under
compulsion, not having the strength to suffer death
patiently, which was ready for him ” 1 Indeed, when
1 Cal x., No. 570.
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
2/7
dying, his apostacy seems to have been his last
thought, for in his closing hours, as the story of the
passion was read to him he exclaimed, “ Negavi cum
Petro, exivi cum Petro, sed nondum flevi cum Petro.”
All his life long his enemies accused him of dissimu-
lation and hypocrisy for acts like these, but it was
precisely this quality which raised him to eminence.
Had he not been purchasable, he could hardly have
survived as an Anglican bishop , an enthusiast like
Fisher would have ended on Tower Hill.
Perhaps more fully than any other prelate of his
time, Gardiner represented the faction of Henry and
Norfolk; he was as orthodox as he could be and yet
prosper. He hated Cromwell and all “ gospellers/*
and he loved power and splendour and office Fisher,
with the temperament of Saint Anselm, shivering
in his squalid house, clad in his shirt of hair, and
sleeping on his pallet of straw, might indeed “ humbly
thank the king’s majesty” who rid him of “all this
worldly business,” but men who rose to eminence in
the reformed church were made of different stuff, and
Gardiner’s ruling passion never burned more fiercely
than as he neared his death. Though in excruciating
torments from disease, he clung to office to the last
Noailles, the French ambassador, at a last interview,
found him “ livid with jaundice and bursting with
dropsy : but for two hours he held discourse with me
calmly and graciously, without a sign of discompos-
ure , and at parting he must needs take my arm and
walk through three saloons, on purpose to show him-
self to the people, because they said that he was dead.” 1
1 Ambassadts, v. 150. Quotation from History of the Church of
England^ Dixon, jv. 450
278 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP*
Gardiner was a man born to be a great prelate
under a monied oligarchy, but, gifted as he surely
was, he must yield in glory to that wonderful arch-
bishop who stamped the impress of his mind so deeply
on the sect he loved, and whom most Anglicans would
probably call, with Canon Dixon, the first clergyman
of his age Cranmer was so supremely fitted to meet
the requirements of the economic revolution in which
he lived, that he rose at a bound from insignificance
to what was, for an Englishman, the summit of great-
ness. In 1529, when the breach came, Gardiner
already held the place of chief secretary, while Cran-
mer remained a poor Fellow of Jesus Within four
years he had been consecrated primate, and he had
bought his preferment by swearing allegiance to the
pope, though he knew himself promoted for the ex-
press purpose of violating his oath, by decreeing the
divorce which should sever England from Rome. His
qualities were all recognized by his contemporaries ;
his adroitness, his trustworthiness, and his flexibility.
“ Such an archbishop so nominated, and . . so and
in such wise consecrated, was a meet instrument for
the king to work by . . a meet cover for such a
cup; neither was there ever bear-ward that might
more command his bears than the king might com-
mand him.” 1 This judgment has always been held
by Churchmen to be no small claim to fame ; Burnet,
for example, himself a bishop and an admirer of his
eminent predecessor, was clear that Cranmer’s strength
lay in that mixture of intelligence and servility which
made him useful to those who paid him r —
1 Pretended Divorce of Henry VI/I , Harpsfield, Camden Society,
291.
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
279
“Cranmer’s great interest with the king was chiefly
grounded on some opinions he had of the ecclesiastical
officers being as much subject to the king’s power as all
other civil officers were. . . . But thei e was this difference :
that Cranmer was once of that opinion . . . but Bonner
against his conscience (if he had any) complied with it.” 1
The genius of the archbishop as a courtier may be
measured by the fate which overtook his contempo-
raries He was the fourth of Henry’s great minis-
ters, of whom Cromwell, Norfolk, and Wolsey were
the other three. Wolsey was disgraced, plundered,
and hounded to death ; Cromwell was beheaded, and
Norfolk was on his way to the scaffold, when saved
by the death of the man who condemned him. The
priest alone, as Lutheran, or as worshipper of the
miracle which he afterward denied, always kept
the sunshine of favour. Burnet has described how
readily he violated his oath by participating in the at-
tempt to change the succession under Edward " He
stood firm, and said, that he could not subscribe it
without perjury; having sworn to the observance of
King Henry’s will. . . The king himself required
him to set his hand to the will. . .It grieved him
much, but such was the love that he bore to the
king, that in conclusion he yielded, and signed it.” 1
Like the chameleon, he changed his colour to match
the force which upheld him Under Edward, he be-
came radical as easily as he had sung the mass under
the “ Six Articles,” or as, under Mary, he pleaded to
be allowed to return to Rome. Nor did he act thus
from cowardice, for when he went to the fire, not a
1 Burnet's History of the Reformation , Pocock’s ed , 1. 428.
8 Ibid*) 111. 376.
28 o
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
martyr of the Reformation showed more constancy
than he. With hardly an exception, Cranmer’s con-
temporaries suffered because they could not entirely
divest themselves of their scruples Even Gardiner
had convictions strong enough to lodge him in the
Tower, and Bonner ended his days in the Marshalsea,
rather than abjure again under Elizabeth, but no such
weakness hampered Cranmer At Oxford, before
his execution, he recanted, in various forms, very
many times, and would doubtless have gone on re-
canting could he have saved himself by so doing.
Unlike Gardiner, his convictions were evangelical,
and he probably imbibed reformed principles quite
early, for he married Ossiander’s niece when in Ger-
many, before he became archbishop. Characteristi-
cally enough, he voted for the “Six Articles” in
deference to Henry , 1 although the third section of the
act provided death and forfeiture of goods for any
priest who might marry. Afterward, he had to con-
ceal his wife and carry “ her from place to place hid-
den from sight in a chest ” 2 Cranmer alleged at his
trial that he had stayed orthodox regarding the sacra-
ment until Ridley had converted him, after Henry’s
death. But, leaving out of consideration the improb-
ability of a man of Cranmer’s remarkable acuteness
being influenced by Ridley, the judgment of such a
man as Foxe should have weight. Certainly, Foxe
thought him a “gospeller” at the time of Lambert’s
trial, and nothing can give so vivid an idea of the
lengths to which men of the Anglican type were
1 Blunt’s Reformation , i. 475.
2 Anglican Schism, Sander, Lewis’ trans., 181, Also Pretended
Divorce of Hemy VII L, Harpsfield, 290,
IX. THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN 28 1
ready to go, as the account given by Foxe of the
martyrdom of this sectary : —
“ Lambert ‘ I answer, with Saint Augustine, that it is the
body of Christ, after a certain manner.’
“ The King * Answer me neither out of Saint Augustine,
nor by the authority of any other; but tell me plainly,
whether thou sayest it is the body of Christ, or no.’ . . .
“ Lambert ‘ Then I deny it to be the body of Christ.’
“ The King * * Mark well ! for now thou shalt be con-
demned even by Christ’s own words, “ Hoc est corpus
meum.” ’
“Then he commanded Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of
Canterbury, to refute his assertion, who, first making a short
preface unto the hearers, began his disputation with Lambert
very modestly, . . . Then again the king and the bishops
raged against Lambert, insomuch that he was not only
forced to silence, but also might have been driven into a
rage, if his ears had not been acquainted with such taunts
before. . . . And here it is much to be marvelled at, to see
how unfortunately it came to pass in this matter, that . . .
Satan (who oftentimes doth raise up one brother to the de-
struction of another) did here perform the condemnation of
this Lambert by no other ministers than gospellers them-
selves, Taylor, Barnes, Cranmer, and Cromwell ; who, after-
wards, in a manner, ail suffered the like for the gospel’s
sake ; of whom (God willing) we will speak more here-
after . . . Upon the day that was appointed for this holy
martyr of God to suffer, he was brought out of the prison
at eight o’clock m the morning unto the house of the lord
Cromwell, and so earned into his inward chamber, where, it
is reported of many, that Cromwell desired of him for-
giveness for what he had done. ... As touching the ter-
rible manner and fashion of the burning of this blessed
martyr, here is to be noted, that of all others who have been
burned and offered up at Smithfield, there was yet none so
cruelly and piteously handled as he. For, after that his legs
282
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
were consumed and burned up to the stumps, and that the
wretched tormentors andjenemies of God had withdrawn the
fire from him, so that but a small fire and coals were left
under him, then two that stood on each side of him, with
their halberts pitched him upon their pikes, as far as the
chain would reach. . . . Then he, lifting up such hands as
he had, and his finger’s ends flaming with fire, cried unto the
people in these words, < None but Christ, none but Christ , ’
and so, being let down again from their halberts, fell into the
fire, and there ended his life.” 1
In a hierarchy like the Anglican, whose function
was to preach passive obedience to the representa-
tive of an opulent, but somewhat sluggish oligarchy,
there could be no permanent place for idealists.
With a Spanish invasion threatening them, an unwar-
like ruling class might tolerate sailors like Drake, or
priests like Latimer ; but, in the long run, their inter-
est lay in purging England of so dangerous an ele-
ment. The aristocracy sought men who could be
bought ; but such were of a different type from Lati-
mer, who, when they brought to him the fire, as he
stood chained to the stake, “ spake in this manner :
*Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the
man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s
grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.’ ”
And so, “after he had stroked his face with his
hands, and as it were bathed them a little in the firi,
he soon died.”
Ecclesiastics like Latimer were apt to be of the
mind of Knox, who held “ that sick as may and do
brydill the inordinatt appetyteis of Princes, cannot
be accusit of resistance to the aucthoratie, quhilk is
1 Acts and Monuments, , v. 230.
IX.
THE EVICTION OE THE YEOMEN
283
Godis gud ordinance.” And as the interests of landed
capital were bound up with the maintenance of the
royal prerogative, such men had to be eliminated.
After the death of Mary, the danger apprehended by
the landed gentry was a Spanish invasion, coupled
with a Catholic insurrection, and therefore the policy
of statesmen like Cecil was to foster hostility to
Rome. Until after the Armada, Anglicans were per-
mitted to go all lengths towards Geneva ; even as
late as 1595 the “ Lambeth Articles” breathed pure
Calvinism. But with the opening of a new century,
a change set in, as the power of Spain dwindled,
rents rose, and the farmers grew restive at the pre-
cise moment when men of the heroic temperament
could be discarded Raleigh was sent to the Tower
in 1603.
According to Thorold Rogers, “ good arable land
[which] let at less than a shilling an acre in the last
quarter of the sixteenth century, was let at 55*. to 6 s,
at the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth,”
while rent for pasture doubled 1 Rising rents, and
prices tending to become stationary, caused suffer-
ing among the rural population, and with suffering
came discontent. This discontent in the country was
fomented by restlessness m the towns, for commerce
had been strongly stimulated during the reign of
Elizabeth by the Spanish wars, and the mercantile
element began to rebel against legislation passed in
the interest of the favoured class. Suddenly the dis-
satisfaction found vent; for more than forty years
the queen's ministers had met with no serious oppo-
sition in Parliament, in 1601, without warning, their
1 Agriculture and Prices , Rogers, v. 804.
284
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
system of monopolies was struck down, and from
that day to the revolution of 1688, the House of
Commons proved to be unmanageable by the Crown.
Even as early as the accession of James, the compe-
tition between the aristocracy and their victims had
begun to glow with the heat which presages civil war
Had the Tudor aristocracy been a martial caste,
they would doubtless have organized an army, and
governed by the sword , but they instinctively felt
that, upon the field of battle, they might be at a disad-
vantage, and therefore they attempted to control the
popular imagination through the priesthood. Thus
the divine right of primogeniture came to be the dis-
tinguishing tenet of the Church of England. James
felt the full force of the current which was carrying
him onward, and expressed the situation pithily in
his famous apothegm, “ No bishop, no king ” “ I will
have,” said he, “one doctrine, one discipline, one re-
ligion in substance and ceremony ; ” and the policy
of the interest he represented was laid down as early
as 1604, at the conference at Hampton Court.
Passive obedience was to be preached, and the
church filled with men who could be relied on by the
oligarchy. Six weeks after the conference at Hamp-
ton Court, Whitgift died, and Bancroft, Bishop of
London, was translated to Canterbury. Within a
week he was at work He had already prepared a
Book of Canons with which to test the clergy, and
this he had ratified by the convocation which pre-
ceded his consecration. In these canons the divine
origin of episcopacy was asserted , a strange depart-
ure from the doctrine of Cranmer In 1605 there
are supposed to have been about fifteen hundred
IX.
THE EVICTION OF THE YEOMEN
285
Puritan clergymen in England and Wales, and at
Bancroft’s first winnowing three hundred were ejected.
Among these Puritans was a certain John Robin-
son, the teacher of a small congregation of yeomen,
in the village of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire. The
man’s birth is unknown, his early history is obscure,
but in him, and in the farmers who heard him preach,
the long and bitter struggle against the pressure of
the class which was destroying them, had bred that
stern and sombre enthusiasm which afterward marked
the sect. By 1607 England had grown intolerable to
this congregation, and they resolved to emigrate.
They had heard that in Holland liberty of conscience
was allowed, and they fondly hoped that with liberty of
conscience they might be content to earn their daily
bread in peace. Probably with them, however, religion
was not the cause, but the effect of their uneasiness,
as the result proved.
After many trials and sorrows, these poor people
finally assembled in Amsterdam, and thence jour-
neyed to Leyden, where they dwelt some eleven
years But they found the struggle for life to be
full as severe in the Low Countries as it had been at
home, and presently the exiles began to long for some
distant land where “they might more glorify God, do
more good to their country, better provide for their
posterity, and live to be more refreshed by their
labours, than ever they could do in Holland.” Ac-
cordingly, obtaining a grant from the Virginia Com-
pany, they sailed in the Mayflower m 1620, to settle
in New England ; and thus, by the eviction of the
yeomen, England laid the foundation of one great
province of her colonial empire,
CHAPTER X
SPAIN AND INDIA
In the words of Mr Froude : “ Before the sixteenth
century had measured half its course the shadow of
Spain already stretched beyond the Andes , from the
mines of Peru and the custom-houses of Antwerp the
golden rivers streamed into her imperial treasury;
the crowns of Aragon and Castile, of Burgundy,
Milan, Naples, and Sicily, clustered on the brow of
her sovereigns ” 1 But with all their great martial
qualities, the Spaniards seem to have been incapable
of attaining the same velocity of movement as the
races with which they had to compete. They never
emerged from the imaginative period, they never
developed the economic type, and in consequence
they never centralized as the English centralized.
Even as early as the beginning of the seventeenth
century this peculiarity had been observed, for the
Duke de Sully remarked that with Spain the “legs
and arms are strong and powerful, but the heart
infinitely weak and feeble ”
Captain Mahan has explained the military impo-
tence of the mighty mass which, scattered over two
continents, could not command the sea, and in the
seventeenth century an intelligent Dutchman boasted
1 History of England \ viii 425.
286
CHAP. X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
287
that “ the Spaniards have publicly begun to hire our
ships to sail to the Indies, ... It is manifest that
the West Indies, being as the stomach to Spain (for
from it nearly all the revenue is drawn), must be
joined to the Spanish head by a sea force”, 1 and
the glory of the Elizabethan sailors lay not only m
having routed this sea force, but in having assimi-
lated no small portion of the nutriment which the
American stomach should have supplied to the Span-
ish heart
As Spain lingered long in the imaginative age, the
priest and soldier there reigned supreme after the
mercantile and sceptical type had begun to predom-
inate elsewhere ; and the instinct of the priest and
soldier has always been to exterminate their rivals
when pressed by their competition. In the Spanish
peninsula itself the Inquisition soon trampled out
heresy, but by the middle of the sixteenth century
the Low Countries were a hotbed of Protestantism,
and in Flanders these opposing forces fought out
their battle to the death. The war which ruined
Antwerp made England.
In 1576 Antwerp was sacked and burned , in 1585
the town was reduced to starvation by the Duke of
Parma, and its commerce having been scattered by
successive disasters, some of it migrated to Amster-
dam, and some sought shelter in the Thames. In
London the modern man was protected by the sea,
and the crisis of the combat came in 1588, when the
Spaniards, having decided to pursue their enemy to
his last stronghold, sent the Armada to perish in the
Channel. With that supreme effort the vitality of
1 Influence of the Sea Power upon History , Malian, 41.
288
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
the great imaginative empire began to fail, disinte-
gration set in, and on the ruins of Spain rose the
purely economic centralization of Great Britain.
Like the Venetians, the British laid the basis of
their high fortune by piracy and slaving, and their
advantage over Spain lay not in mass, but in a supe-
rior energy, which gave them more rapid movement
Drake’s squadron, when he sailed round the world,
numbered five ships, the largest measuring only one
hundred and twenty tons, the smallest twelve, but
with these he succeeded because of their speed.
For example, he overtook the Cacafuego, whose
ballast was silver, and whose cargo gold and jewels.
He never disclosed her value, but the Spanish gov-
ernment afterward proved a loss of a million and a
half of ducats, beside the property of private individ-
uals In like manner the Armada was destroyed by
little ships, which sailed round their clumsy enemy,
and disabled him before he could strike a blow in
self-defence.
The Spanish wars were halcyon days for the men
of martial blood who had lost their land ; they took
to the sea by thousands, and ravaged the Spanish
colonies with the energy and ferocity of vikings.
For nearly a generation they wallowed in gold and
silver and gems, and in the plunder of the American
towns. Among these men Sir Francis Drake stood
foremost, but, after 1560, the southern counties
swarmed with pirates; and when, in 1585, Drake
sailed on his raid against the West Indies, he led a
force of volunteers twenty-five hundred strong. He
held no commission, the crews of his twenty-five ships
served without pay, they went as buccaneers to fatten
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
289
on the commerce of the Spaniard. As it happened,
this particular expedition failed financially, for the
treasure fleet escaped, and the plunder of the three
cities of Santiago, Samt Domingo, and Carthagena
yielded only ^60,000, but the injury done to Spain
was incalculable.
No computation can be attempted of the spoil
taken during these years ; no reports were ever made ;
on the contrary, all concerned were anxious to conceal
their doings, but certain prizes were too dazzling to
be hidden. When Drake surprised three caravans
on the Isthmus, numbering one hundred and ninety
mules, each mule loaded with three hundred pounds
of silver, the fact became known. No wonder Drake
ate off “ silver richly gilt, and engraved with his
arms,” that he had “ all possible luxuries, even to
perfumes,” that he dined and supped “to the music
of violins,” and that he could bribe the queen with
a diamond cross and a coronet set with splendid
emeralds, and give the lord chancellor a service of
plate. What he gave in secret he alone knew
As Francis Drake was the ideal English corsair,
so John Hawkins was the ideal slaver. The men
were kinsmen, and of the breed which, when driven
from their farms at the end of the Middle Ages, left
their mark all over the world. Of course the two
sailors were “gospellers/* and Mr. Froude has quoted
an interesting passage from the manuscript of a
contemporary Jesuit, which shows how their class
was esteemed toward the close of the sixteenth cen-
tury : “ The only party that would fight to the death
for the queen, the only real friends she had, were the
Puritans, the Puritans of London, the Puritans of
v
290
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
hour was recognized as among the most brilliant
officers of the world
Other campaigns followed, but his health, under-
mined by the tropics, gave way, and at twenty-seven
he returned home to squander his money and con-
test an election to Parliament He soon reached the
end of his resources, and, just before the opening
of the Seven Years’ War, he accepted a lieutenant-
colonel’s commission, and set sail to take command in
Hindostan. The Company appointed him governor
of Fort Saint David, a settlement near Madras; but
he had hardly assumed his office before an event
occurred which caused the conquest of Bengal The
Nabob of Bengal captured Calcutta, and imprisoned
one hundred and forty-six of the English residents in
the “ Black Hole,” where, in a single night, one hun-
dred and twenty-three perished
Clive was summoned, and acted with his usual
vigour. He routed the Nabob’s army, recovered
Calcutta, and would have taken vengeance at once
had not the civilians, who wanted to be restored to
their places, interfered.
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
29I
vented from trading peaceably, he used force In his
first voyage he met with no opposition, but subse-
quently, at Burburata, leave to sell was denied him,
and, without an instant’s hesitation, he marched
against the town with “a hundred men well armed/’
and brought the governor to terms. Having supplied
all the slaves needed at that port, Hawkins went on
to Rio de la Hacha, where he, in like manner, made
a demonstration with “one hundred men in armour,”
and two small guns, and m ten days he had dis-
posed of his whole stock.
As at that time an able negro appears to have been
worth about £\6o in the West Indies, 1 a cargo of
five hundred ought to have netted between seventy
and eighty thousand pounds, for the cost of kidnap-
ping was trifling No wonder, therefore, that slaving
flourished, and that, by the middle of the eighteenth
century, England probably carried not far from one
hundred thousand blacks annually from Africa to the
colonies. The East offered no such market, and
doubtless Adam Smith was right in his opinion that
the commerce with India had never been so advan-
tageous as the trade to America. 2
Both slavers and pirates brought bullion to Eng-
land, and presently this flow of silver began to stimu-
late at London a certain amount of exchange between
the East and West. The Orientals have always pre-
ferred payment in specie, and, as silver has usually
offered more profit than gold as an export, the Euro-
pean with a surplus of silver has had the advantage
over all competitors. Accordingly, until Spain lost
1 S. j P. Dom Ehz , 53
2 Wealth of Nations, book 4, ch. i.
292
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
the power to protect her communications with her
mines, the Spanish peninsula enjoyed almost a mo-
nopoly of the trade beyond the Cape ; but as the war
went on, and more of the precious metal flowed to
the north, England and Holland began to send their
silver to Asia, the Dutch organizing one East India
Company m 1595, and the British another in 1600.
Sir Josiah Child, who was, perhaps, the ablest mer-
chant of the seventeenth century, observed that in
1 545 “ the trade of England then was inconsiderable,
and the merchants very mean and few.” 1 Child's
facts are beyond doubt, and the date he fixed is in-
teresting because it coincides with the discovery of
Potosi, whence most of the silver came which sup-
plied the pirates and the slavers. Prior to 1545
specie had been scarce in London, but when the
buccaneers had been scuttling treasure galleons for
a generation, they found themselves possessed of
enough specie to set them dreaming of India, and
thus piracy laid the foundation of the British em-
pire in Asia
But robbing the Spaniards had another more im-
mediate and more startling result, for it probably
precipitated the civil war. As the city grew rich it
chafed at the slow movement* of the aristocracy,
who, timid and peaceful, cramped it by closing the
channels through which it reached the property of
foreigners; and, just when the yeomanry were ex-
asperated by rising rents, London began to glow
with that energy which, when given vent, was des-
tined to subdue so large a portion of the world.
Jferhaps it is not going too far to say that, even
1 Discourse of Trade , Child, ed. 1775, 8.
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
293
from the organization of the East India Company,
the mercantile interest controlled England. Not
that it could then rule alone, it lacked the power
to do so for nearly a hundred years to come; but,
after 1600, its weight turned the scale 011 which side
soever thrown. Before the Long Parliament the
merchants were generally Presbyterians or moderate
Puritans, the farmers, Independents or Radicals;
and Winthrop, when preparing for the emigration
to Massachusetts, dealt not only with squires like
Hampden, but with city magnates like Thomas
Andrews, the lord mayor. This alliance between
the rural and the urban Puritans carried through the
Great Rebellion, and as their coalition crushed the
monarchy so their separation reinstated it.
Macaulay has very aptly observed that “ but for the
hostility of the city, Charles the First would never
have been vanquished, and that, without the help of
the city, Charles the Second could scarcely have been
restored ” 1 At the Protector’s death the Presbyte-
rians abandoned the farmers, probably because they
feared them. The army of the Commonwealth
swarmed with men like Cromwell and Blake, war-
riors resistless alike on land and sea, with whom,
when organized, the city could not cope Therefore
it scattered them, and, throwing in its lot with the
Cavaliers, set up the king
For about a generation after the Restoration, no
single interest had the force to impose its will upon
the nation, or, in other words, parties were equally
balanced; but from the middle of the century the
tide flowed rapidly Capital accumulated, and as it
1 History of England, ch. ni.
294
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
accumulated the men adapted to be its instruments
grew to be the governing class Sir Josiah Child is
the most interesting figure of this period. His
acquaintance remembered him a poor apprentice
sweeping the counting-house where he worked , and
yet, at fifty, his fortune reached ,£20,000 a year, a
sum almost equal to the rent-roll of the Duke of
Ormond, the richest peer of the realm. Child
married his daughter to the eldest son of the Duke
of Beaufort, and gave her £50,000, and his ability
was so commanding that for years he absolutely
ruled the East India Company, and used its revenues
to corrupt Parliament. On matters of finance such a
man would hardly err, and he gave it as his opinion
that in 1635 “there were more merchants to be found
upon the Exchange worth each one thousand pounds
and upwards, than were in the former days, viz.,
before the year 1600, to be found worth one hundred
pounds each ”
“ And now . . . there are more men to be found upon
the Exchange now worth ten thousand pounds estates,
than were then of one thousand pounds. And if this be
doubted, let us ask the aged, whether five hundred pounds
portion with a daughter sixty years ago, were not esteemed
a larger portion than two thousand pounds is now; and
whether gentlewomen in those days would not esteem them-
selves well clothed in a serge gown, which a chambermaid
now will be ashamed to be seen in. . . . We have now
almost one hundred coaches for one we had formerly. We
with ease can pay a greater tax now m one year than our
forefathers could m twenty. Our customs are very much
improved, I believe above the proportion aforesaid, of six
to one, which is not so much m advance of the rates of
goods as by increase of the bulk of trade. . . *
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
295
“ I can myself remember since there were not in London
used so many wharves or keys for the landing of merchants 1
goods, by at least one third part, as now there are, and those
that were then could scarce have employment for half what
they could do, and now, notwithstanding one-third more
used to the same purpose, they are all too little, in time of
peace, to land the goods at, that come to London.” 1
Child estimated that, within twenty years, wages
had risen one-third, and rents twenty-five per cent,
while “houses new-built in London yield twice the
rent they did before the fire.” 2 Farms that “their
grandfathers or fathers bought or sold fifty years
past . . . would yield, one with another, at least
treble the money, and m some cases, six times the
money, they were then bought and sold for.” 3
Macaulay has estimated the population of London
in 1685 at half a million, and believed it to have
then become the largest city in Europe
The aristocracy were forced to tolerate men of the
predatory type while they feared a Spanish invasion,
but after the defeat of the Armada these warriors
became dangerous at home, and the oligarchy, very
naturally, tried to purge the island of a class which
constantly menaced their authority. Persecution
drove numbers of Nonconformists to America, and
the story of Captain John Smith shows how hardly
society then pressed on the race of adventurers,
even where the bitterness of the struggle did not
produce religious enthusiasm.
‘ Smith lived a generation too late. Born in 1579,
he was a child of nine when the Armada perished,
1 Discourse of Trade , Josiah Child, ed. 1775, 8, 9, 10.
* Ilnd., Pref. xxxi, 8 Ihd. % 41*
296 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
and only sixteen when Drake and Hawkins died at
sea Smith’s father had property, but when left an
orphan his guardians neglected him, and at fifteen
let him set out on his travels with only ten shillings
in his pocket At home no career was open to him,
for the Cecils rather inclined to imprison and behead
soldiers of fortune than to reward them. Accord-
ingly he went abroad, and by twenty-five had seen
service in most countries of the Continent, had been
enslaved by the Turks, had escaped and wandered
to Barbary, had fought the Spanish on a French
man-of-war, and at last had learned that the dreams
of his youth belonged to a past age, and that he
must enter a new path. He therefore joined himself
to a party bound for Virginia, and the hardship of
the times may be gauged by the fact that out of a
company of a hundred, fifty-two were gentlemen ad-
venturers as needy as himself, none of whom sought
exile for religion.
Smith’s voyages to America brought him nothing
but bitterness. He returned to England and passed
his last years in obscurity and neglect, and perhaps
the fate that awaited soldiers under James, has been
nowhere better told than m Smith’s own words. He
spent five years and more than five hundred pounds
in the service of Virginia and New England, yet “in
neither . . have I one foot of land, nor the very
house I builded, nor the ground I digged with my
own hands, nor ever any content or satisfaction at
all, and though I see ordinarily those two countries
shared before me by them that neither have them,
nor know them but by my descriptions.” 1
1 American Biography, Sparks, ii, 388,
X SPAIN AND INDIA 297
As long as the Tudor aristocracy ruled, Great
Britain afforded small comfort for men like Smith.
That aristocracy had genius neither for adventure
nor for war, and few Western nations have a sorrier
military history than England under the Stuarts.
Yet beneath the inert mass of the nobility seethed
an energy which was to recentralize the world ; and
when capital had accumulated to a certain point, the
men who gave it an outlet laid their grasp upon the
State. In 1688 the commercial adventurers con-
quered the kingdom
The change was radical ; at once social, political,
and religious The stronghold of the Tories had
been the royal prerogative The victors lodged the
power of the Crown in a committee chosen by the
House of Commons. The dogma of divine right im-
mediately vanished, and with it all that distinguished
Anglicanism Though perverted by the Tudors, this
great tenet of the Church of Henry VIII had been
at least a survival of an imaginative age ; and when
the merchants swept it away, all trace of idealism
departed. Thenceforward English civilization became
a purely materialistic phenomenon.
In proportion as movement accelerates societies
consolidate, and as societies consolidate they pass
through a profound intellectual change Energy
ceases to find vent through the imagination, and
takes the form of capital ; hence as civilizations ad-
vance, the imaginative temperament tends to dis-
appear, while the economic instinct is fostered, and
thus substantially new varieties of men come to pos-
sess the world
Nothing so portentous overhangs humanity as this
298
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAr.
mysterious and relentless acceleration of movement,
which changes methods of competition and alters
paths of trade, for by it countless millions of men
and women are foredoomed to happiness or misery,
as certainly as the beasts and trees, which have
flourished in the wilderness, are destined to vanish
when the soil is subdued by man.
The Romans amassed the treasure by which they
administered their Empire, through the plunder and
enslavement of the world The Empire cemented
by that treasure crumbled when adverse exchanges
carried the bullion of Italy to the shore of the Bos-
phorus. An accelerated movement among the semi-
barbarians of the West caused the agony of the
crusades, amidst which Constantinople fell as the
Italian cities rose, while Venice and Genoa, and with
them the whole Arabic civilization, shrivelled, when
Portugal established direct communication with Him
dostan.
The opening of the ocean as a highroad precipitated
the Reformation, and built up Antwerp, while in the
end it ruined Spain , and finally the last great quicken-
ing of the age of steam, which centralized the world
at London, bathed the earth in blood, from the Mis-
sissippi to the Ganges. Thus religions are preached
and are forgotten, empires rise and fall, philosophies
are born and die, art and poetry bloom and fade, as
societies pass from the disintegration wherein the
imagination kindles, to the consolidation whose press-
ure ends in death
In 1688, when the momentum of England suddenly
increased, the change was equivalent to the conquest
of the island by a new race. Among the family of
X
SPAIN AND INDIA
299
European nations, Great Britain rose as no people
had risen since the Punic Wars. Almost instantly
she entered on a career of conquest unparalleled m
modern history. Of the hundred and twenty-five
years between the Boyne and Waterloo, she passed
some seventy in waging ferocious wars, from which
she emerged victorious on land and sea, the mistress
of a mighty empire, the owner of incalculable wealth,
and the centre of the world’s exchanges. Then, from
this culminating point of expansion by conquest, she
glided subtly, and almost imperceptibly, into the
period of contraction, as Rome went before her under
the Caesars.
Although abundant metallic currency does not,
probably, of itself, create mercantile prosperity, such
prosperity is hardly compatible with a shrinking stock
of money, for when contraction sets in and prices
fall, pioducers and debtors are ruined, as they were
ruined in Italy under the later emperors. Toward
the close of the seventeenth century Europe appeared
to be on the brink of such a contraction, for though
Peru had lavishly replenished the supply of the
precious metals a hundred years previously, the drain
to Asia and the increasing demands of commerce
had been so considerable, that the standard coin had
generally depreciated. From the reign of Augustus
downward, commerce between Europe and Asia has
usually favoured Asia, and this was particularly true
of the seventeenth century, when the value of bullion
fell in the West, and therefore encouraged lavish
exports to the East, where it retained its purchasing
power. According to Adam Smith, 14 the banks of
Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Nurem-
300
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
berg, seem to have been all originally established ” to
provide an ideal currency for the settlement of bills
of exchange, and the money (t of such banks, being
better than the common currency of the country, neces-
sarily bore an agio, which was greater or smaller, ac-
cording as the currency was supposed to be more or
less degraded below the standard of the State.” 1
Smith estimated the depreciation at Hamburg at
fourteen per cent, and at Amsterdam, early in the
previous century, at nine per cent, in short, all
European countries suffered, but m England the evil
reached a climax through the inertia of the new
aristocracy.
In England, silver had always been the standard,
and by the third year of Elizabeth the coin had been
restored to its proper fineness, which thenceforward
was scrupulously maintained. But though the metal
was not degraded by the govexmment, the stock of
bullion, if not constantly replenished from without,
tended to diminish in proportion to the growth of
the country and the export of specie to Asia. After
the discovery of America, the value of silver in rela-
tion to gold fell, in Europe, to about fourteen or fifteen
to one, while in China or India it stood pretty steady
at from ten to twelve to one. Consequently from
1600 downward, silver remained the most profitable
cargo which could be sent round the Cape of Good
Hope, and, unhappily for British prosperity, at the
very moment when the East India Company came
into being, piracy ceased. The chief supply of bul-
lion being thus cut off, the strain of the export trade
fell upon the coin, and within a little more than a
1 Wealth of Nations , bk. iv. c. 3, pt, l«
X. SPAIN AND INDIA 30 r
generation the effect become apparent in a degenera-
tion of the currency.
To make good her position as a centre of exchanges,
England had no choice but to supply her necessities
by force. Cromwell understood the situation per-
fectly, and had hardly assumed the office of Protector
when he laid plans to cut the evil at the root by con-
quering Spanish America, and robbing Spain of her
mines. To this end he fitted out his great expedition
against Saint Domingo, which was to serve him as his
base ; but for once his military genius failed him, his
commanders blundered, the attack miscarried, and
the island of Jamaica was all that came of the cam-
paign.
Meanwhile, however, that no time might be lost
while fighting for the mines themselves, Cromwell
sent Blake to intercept the treasure ships off the
coast of Spain. At first Blake also had ill-luck. In
1655 the plate fleet escaped him, but the next year,
though forced himself to go to port for supplies, he
detached Captain Stayner, with six sail, to cruise off
Cadiz, and on September 19, General Montague
was able to report that his “ hart [was] very much
warmed with the apprehension of the singular provi-
dence of God,” who had permitted Stayner to meet,
“with the Kinge of Spain’s West India fleete,” and
take among other prizes “ a gallion reported to have
in her two million pieces of plate.” 1 If the “ plate ”
were Mexican “ pieces of eight ” at four shillings and
sixpence, the cargo was worth ,£450,000, or consider-
ably more than the whole annual export to the East
at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Had
1 Thurloe's State Pape ? s, v. 433, 434.
302
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
the Protector lived, there can be little doubt that, by
some such means as this, he would have fostered
British resources, and maintained the integrity of
British coin; but in less than two years from the
date of Montague’s dispatch, Cromwell was dead, and
the inertia of the Tory landlords paralyzed the nation
for another generation. No foreigner was robbed,
and the stock of domestic silver dwindled from year
to year, until at the Revolution the golden guinea,
which, from its first issue in 1662 down to the acces-
sion of William and Mary, had been nominally cur-
rent for twenty shillings, actually sold m the market
for thirty shillings of the money in use
“ This diminishing and counterfeiting the money was at
this time so excessive, that what was good silver was worth
scarcely one-half of its current value, whilst a great part of
the coins was only iron, brass, or copper plated, and some
no more than washed over.” 1
One of the first acts of the new government was
a complete recoinage, which was finished in 1699;
but the measure failed of its purpose, for the reason
that the exports of silver regularly exceeded the im-
ports.
In 1717, a committee of the House of Lords con-
sidered the condition of the currency, and Lord Stan-
hope then explained very lucidly the cause of the
scarcity of silver. Among other papers he produced
a report from the Custom House, by which it ap-
peared that, in the year 1717, “the East India Com-
pany had exported near three million ounces of silver,
which far exceeding the imports of the bullion in that
1 Annals of the Coinage of Britain, Ruclmg, iii. 378.
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
303
year, it necessarily followed that vast quantities of
silver specie must have been melted down, both to
make up the export, and to supply the silversmith.” 1 2
For the decade from 1711 to 1720 the annual export
of bullion by the East India Company averaged
^434,000 2 At the accession of George III , in 1760,
Lord Liverpool estimated that shillings had lost one-
sixth, and sixpences one-quarter of their original
weight, while the crown-piece had almost wholly dis-
appeared. 3 Even Adam Smith admitted that because
of this outflow silver had risen in value, and probably
purchased “ a larger quantity both of labour and com-
modities ” than it otherwise would 4
In this emergency the British merchants showed
the resource which has always been their characteris-
tic, and, in default of an adequate supply of specie,
relieved the strain upon their currency by issuing
paper. Mediaeval banking had gone no further than
the establishment of reserves of coin, to serve as a
medium for clearing bills of exchange ; the English
took the great step of accelerating the circulation of
their money, by using this reserve as a basis for a
paper currency which might be largely expanded.
The Bank of England was incorporated in 1694, the
Bank of Scotland in 1695, and the effect was un-
questionably considerable. Adam Smith has thus
described the impetus received by Glasgow: —
“ The effects of it have been precisely those above de-
scribed. The business of the country is almost entirely
1 Annals of the Coinage , Ruding, m. 470.
2 Investigations m Currency and Finance , Jevons, 1 40.
8 Annals of the Coinage , Ruding, iv. 26.
* Wealth of Nations > bk. iv. c, 1.
304 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
earned on by means of the paper of those different banking
companies, with which purchases and payments of all kinds
are commonly made. Silver very seldom appears except
m the change of a twenty shillings bank note, and gold still
seldomer. But though the conduct of all those different
companies has not been unexceptionable . . . the country,
notwithstanding, has evidently derived great benefit from
their trade. I have heard it asserted, that the trade of the
city of Glasgow doubled m about fifteen years after the first
erection of the banks there ; and that the trade of Scotland
has more than quadrupled since the first erection of the
two public banks at Edinburgh. 15 1
But although by this means a certain degree of
relief was given, and though prices rose slowly
throughout the first half of the eighteenth century,
the fundamental difficulty remained There was
insufficient silver for expoit, exchanges were adverse,
and that stock of coined money was lacking which is
the form in which force clothes itself in highly cen-
tralized communities. How England finally supplied
her needs is one of the most dramatic pages of
history.
As Jevons has aptly observed, Asia is "the great
reservoir and sink of the precious metals ” From
time immemorial the Oriental custom has been to
hoard, and from the Mogul blazing with the dia-
monds of Golconda, to the peasant starving on his
wretched pittance, every Hindoo had, in former
days, a treasure stored away against a day of trouble.
Year by year, since Pizarro had murdered the Inca
Atahualpa for his gold, a stream of bullion had
flowed from America to Europe, and from Europe
1 Wealth of Nations, bk, w c. a.
X. SPAIN AND INDIA 305
to the East : there it had vanished as completely as
though once more buried m the bowels of the mine.
These hoards, the savings of millions of human beings
for centuries, the English seized and took to London,
as the Romans had taken the spoil of Greece and
Pontus to Italy What the value of the treasure was,
no man can estimate, but it must have been many
millions of pounds — a vast sum m proportion to the
stock of the precious metals then owned by Euro-
peans Some faint idea of the booty of the con-
queror may be drawn from Macaulay’s description of
the first visit of an English soldier to an Oriental
treasure chamber : —
“ As to Clive, there was no limit to his acquisitions but his
own moderation. The treasury of Bengal was thrown open
to him. There were piled up, after the usage of Indian
princes, immense masses of com, among which might not
seldom be detected the floiins and byzants with which,
before any European ship had turned the Cape of Good
Hope, the Venetians purchased the stuffs and spices of the
East. Clive walked between heaps of gold and silver,
crowned with rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty to
help himself,” 1
The lives of few men are better known than those
of Clive and Hastings, and yet there are few whose
influence upon the fate of mankind has had such
scant appreciation It is not too much to say that
the destiny of Europe hinged upon the conquest of
Bengal Robert Clive was of the same stock as
Drake and Hawkins, Raleigh, Blake, and Cromwell ,
he was the eldest son of one of those small farmers
whose ancestors had held their land ever since the
1 Lord Clive.
x
306
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Conquest, and who, when at last evicted and driven
out to sea, had fought and conquered on every con-
tinent and on every ocean. Among the throng of
great English adventurers none is greater than he.
He was bom in 1725, and from childhood dis-
played those qualities which made him pre-eminent
on the field of battle ; fighting was his delight, and
so fierce was his temper that his family could not
control him. At last, when eighteen, his father
gladly sent him to Madras as a clerk in the service
of the East India Company ; and there, in a torrid
climate which shattered his health, poor and neg-
lected, lonely and forlorn, he pined, until in mel-
ancholy he twice attempted suicide. But he was
destined to found an empire, and at last his hour
came
When Clive went to India, the Company was still
a purely commercial concern, holding only the land
needed for its warehouses, and having in their pay a
few ill-disciplined sepoys. In the year 1746, when
Clive was twenty-one, the war of the Austrian Suc-
cession was raging, and suddenly a French fleet,
commanded by Labourdonnais, appeared off Madras,
and attacked Fort Saint George. Resistance was
hopeless, the place surrendered, and the governor
and chief inhabitants were taken to Pondicherry.
Clive, however, managed to escape, and, volunteer-
ing, received an ensign’s commission, and began his
military career.
Shortly after, peace was made in Europe, but in
India the issue of the struggle lay undecided between
the French and English, the prize being the penin-
sula. Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry,
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
30 ;
was a man of commanding intellect, who first saw
the possibility of constructing a European empire in
Hindostan by controlling native princes. Following
up his idea, he mixed in a war of succession, and
having succeeded in establishing a sovereign of the
Deccan, he made himself master of Southern India.
The Nizam’s treasure was thrown open to him, and
beside many jewels of price, he is said to have ap-
propriated two hundred thousand pounds in coin.
This was the man whom Clive, when only a clerk of
twenty-five, without military education or experience,
attacked and overthrew.
Clive began his campaigns by the capture and
defence of Arcot, one of the most daring deeds of a
generation given over to perpetual war. Aided by
their native allies, the French had laid siege to
Trichinopoly, and Clive represented to his superiors
that with the fate of Trichinopoly was bound up
the fate of the whole peninsula. He recommended
making a diversion by assaulting Arcot, the capital
of the Carnatic; his plan met with approval, and,
with two hundred Europeans and three hundred
sepoys, he marched to fight the greatest power in
the East. He succeeded m surprising and occupy-
ing the town without loss, but when within the city
his real peril began. Arcot had neither ditches nor
defensible ramparts, the English were short of pro-
visions, and the Nabob hurried forward ten thousand
men to relieve his capital. With four officers, one
hundred and twenty British, and two hundred sepoys,
Clive held the town for fifty days, and when the
enemy assaulted for the last time he served his own
guns. He won a decisive victory, and from that
308
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
hour was recognized as among the most brilliant
officers of the world
Other campaigns followed, but his health, under-
mined by the tropics, gave way, and at twenty-seven
he returned home to squander his money and con-
test an election to Parliament He soon reached the
end of his resources, and, just before the opening
of the Seven Years’ War, he accepted a lieutenant-
colonel’s commission, and set sail to take command in
Hindostan. The Company appointed him governor
of Fort Saint David, a settlement near Madras; but
he had hardly assumed his office before an event
occurred which caused the conquest of Bengal The
Nabob of Bengal captured Calcutta, and imprisoned
one hundred and forty-six of the English residents in
the “ Black Hole,” where, in a single night, one hun-
dred and twenty-three perished
Clive was summoned, and acted with his usual
vigour. He routed the Nabob’s army, recovered
Calcutta, and would have taken vengeance at once
had not the civilians, who wanted to be restored to
their places, interfered.
Long and tortuous negotiations followed, in which
Clive displayed more than Oriental cunning and du-
plicity, ending in a march into the interior and the
battle of Plassey. There, with one thousand English
and two thousand sepoys, he met and crushed the
army of the Nabob, sixty thousand strong. On June
23, 1757, one of the richest provinces of Asia lay
before him defenceless, ripe for plunder. Eight hun-
dred thousand pounds were sent down the Hooghly
to Calcutta, in one shipment ; Clive himself took be-
tween two and three hundred thousand pounds.
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
309
Like Drake and Hawkins, Clive had done great
things for England, but he was a military adventurer,
one of the class m whom the aristocracy recognized
an enemy ; and though in London he was treated
with outward respect, and even given an Irish peer-
age, the landed interest hated him, and tried to de-
stroy him, as in the next generation it tried to destroy
Hastings.
Upon the plundering of India there can be no
better authority than Macaulay, who held high office
at Calcutta when the administration of Hastings was
still remembered; and who less than any of the
writers who have followed him, was a mouth-piece of
the official class . 1 He has told how after Plassey
“the shower of wealth” began to fall, and he has
described Clive’s own gains : “ We may safely
affirm that no Englishman who started with nothing
has ever, in any line of life, created such a fortune
at the early age of thirty-four .” 2 But the takings of
Clive, either for himself or for the government, were
trifling compared to the wholesale robbery and spolia-
tion which followed his departure, when Bengal was
surrendered a helpless prey to a myriad of greedy
officials. These officials were absolute, irresponsible,
and rapacious, and they emptied the private hoards.
Their only thought was to wring some hundreds of
thousands of pounds out of the natives as quickly as
possible, and hurry home to display their wealth.
1 Macaulay’s essays have been the subject of much recent adverse
criticism ; but, m regard to the plundering of Hmdostan, nothing of
consequence has been brought forward against him All recent his-
torical work relating to India must be taken with suspicion The
whole official influence has been turned to distorting evidence in older
to make a case for the government 2 Lord Clive
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
310
“ Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at
Calcutta, while thirty millions of human bemgs were re-
duced to the extremity of wretchedness.” “The misgov-
ernment of the English was carried to a point such as seems
hardly compatible with the very existence of society. The
Roman proconsul, who, in a year or two, squeezed out of
a province the means of rearing marble palaces and baths
on the shores of Campania, of drinking from amber, of
feasting on singing birds, of exhibiting armies of gladiators
and flocks of camelopards ; the Spanish viceroy, who, leav-
ing behind him the curses of Mexico or Lima, entered
Madrid with a long train of gilded coaches, and of sumpter-
horses trapped and shod with silver, were now outdone.” 1
Thus treasure in oceans flowed into England
through private hands, but in India the affairs of
the Company went from bad to worse Misgovern-
ment impoverished the people, the savings of long
years of toil were exhausted, and when, in 1770, a
drought brought famine, the resources of the people
failed, and they perished by millions : “ the very
streets of Calcutta were blocked up by the dying and
the dead,” Then came an outbreak of wrath from
disappointed stockholders ; the landed interest seized
its opportunity to attack Clive in Parliament; and
the merchants chose Hastings to develop the re-
sources of Hindostan.
As Sheridan said, the Company “ extended the sor-
did principles of their origin over all their successive
operations; connecting with their civil policy, and
even with their boldest achievements, the meanness
of a pedlar and the profligacy of pirates.” In Hast-
ings the Company found a man fitted to their hands,
1 Lord Clive,
X.
SPAIN AND INDIA
311
a statesman worthy to organize a vast empire on an
economic basis. Able, bold, cool, and relentless, he
grasped the situation at a glance, and never faltered
in his purpose. If more treasure was to be wrung
from the natives, force had to be used systematically.
Though Bengal might be ruined, the hoards of the
neighbouring potentates remained safe, and these
Hastings deliberately set himself to drain. Macaulay
has explained the policy and the motives which actu-
ated him • —
“The object of his diplomacy was at this time simply
to get money. The finances of his government were in an
embarrassed state, and this embarrassment he was deter-
mined to relieve by some means, fair or foul. The princi-
ple which directed all his dealings with his neighbours is
fully expressed by the old motto of one of the great preda-
tory families of Teviotdale, * Thou shalt want ere I want ’
He seems to have laid it down, as a fundamental proposi-
tion which could not be disputed, that, when he had not as
many lacs of rupees as the public service required, he was
to take them from anybody who had. One thing, indeed,
is to be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied to
him by his employers at home, was such as only the highest
virtue could have withstood, such as left him no choice ex-
cept to commit great wrongs, or to resign his high post, and
with that post all his hopes of fortune and distinction .” 1
How he obtained his money, the pledges he vio-
lated, and the blood he spilt, is known as few pas-
sages of history are known, for the story has been
told by Macaulay and by Burke How he robbed
the Nabob of Bengal of half the income the Company
had solemnly promised to pay, how he repudiated
1 Warren Hastings,
312
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP. x.
the revenue which the government had covenanted
to yield to the Mogul as a tribute for provinces ceded
them, and how, in consideration of four hundred
thousand pounds, he sent a brigade to slaughter the
Rohillas, and placidly saw “ their villages burned,
their children butchered, and their women violated/’
has been described in one of the most popular essays
in the language. At Hastings’ impeachment, the
heaviest charge against him was that based on his
conduct toward the princesses of Oude, whom his
creature, Asaph-ul-Dowlah, imprisoned and starved,
whose servants he tormented, and from whom he
wrung at last twelve hundred thousand pounds, as the
price of blood By these acts, and acts such as these,
the treasure which had flowed to Europe through
the extermination of the Peruvians, was returned
again to England from the hoards of conquered
Hindoos.
CHAPTER XI
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
In discussing the phenomena of the highly cen-
tralized society in which he lived, Mill defined capital
“as the accumulated stock of human labour,” In
other words, capital may be considered as stored
energy ; but most of this energy flows in fixed chan-
nels, money alone is capable of being transmuted
immediately into any form of activity. Therefore the
influx of the Indian treasure, by adding considerably
to the nation's cash capital, not only increased its
stock of energy, but added much to its flexibility and
the rapidity of its movement
Very soon after Plassey the Bengal plunder began
to arrive in London, and the effect appears to have
been instantaneous, for all authorities agree that the
“ industrial revolution,” the event which has divided
the nineteenth century from all antecedent time,
began with the year 1760. Prior to 1760, according
to Baines, the machinery used for spinning cotton
in Lancashire was almost as simple as in India; 1
while about 1750 the English iron industry was in
full decline because of the destruction of the forests
for fuel. At that time four-fifths of the iron in use
in the kingdom came from Sweden
Plassey was fought in 1757, and probably nothing
1 History of the Cotton Manufacture , 1 15*
3*3
314
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
has ever equalled the rapidity of the change which
followed. In 1760 the flying-shuttle appeared, and
coal began to replace wood in smelting. In 1764
Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, in 1779
Crompton contrived the mule, in 1785 Cartwright
patented the power-loom, and, chief of all, in 1768
Watt matured the steam-engine, the most perfect of
all vents of centralizing energy. But though these
machines served as outlets for the accelerating move-
ment of the time, they did not cause that acceleration.
In themselves inventions are passive, many of the
most important having lam dormant for centuries,
waiting for a sufficient store of force to have ac-
cumulated to set them working. That store must
always take the shape of money, and money not
hoarded, but in motion.
Thus printing had been known for ages in China
before it came to Europe ; the Romans probably were
acquainted with gunpowder , revolvers and breech-
loading cannon existed in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, and steam had been experimented upon
long before the birth of Watt. The least part of
Watt’s labour lay in conceiving his idea; he consumed
his life in marketing it Before the influx of the Indian
treasure, and the expansion of credit which followed,
no force sufficient for this purpose existed ; and had
Watt lived fifty years earlier, he and his invention
must have perished together. Considering the diffi-
culties under which Matthew Boulton, the ablest and
most energetic manufacturer of his time, nearly suc-
cumbed, no one can doubt that without Boulton’s
works at Birmingham the engine could not have been
produced, and yet before 1760 such works could not
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
315
have been organized. The factory system was the
child of the “ industrial revolution,” and until capital
had accumulated in masses capable of giving solidity
to large bodies of labour, manufactures were neces-
sarily carried on by scattered individuals, who com-
bined a handicraft with agriculture. Defoe’s charming
description of Halifax about the time Boulton learned
his trade, is well known : —
“ The nearer we came to Halifax, we found the houses
thicker, and the villages greater, in every bottom , . . .for
the land being divided into small enclosures, from two acres
to six or seven each, seldom moie, every three or four pieces
of land had an house belonging to them.
“ In short, after we had mounted the third hill, we found
the country one continued village, tho’ every way moun-
tainous, hardly an house standing out of a speaking distance
from another ; and, as the day cleared up, we could see at
every house a tenter, and on almost every tenter a piece of
cloth, kersie, or shalloon ; which are the three articles of this
countries labour. . . .
“This place then seems to have been designed by provi-
dence for the very purposes to which it is now allotted, . . .
Nor is the industry of the people wanting to second these
advantages. Tho’ we met few people without doors, yet
within we saw the houses full of lusty fellows, some at the
dye vat, some at the loom, others dressing the cloths ; the
women and children carding, or spinning , all employed from
the youngest to the oldest ; scarce anything above four years
old, but its hands were sufficient for its own support. Not a
beggar to be seen, nor an idle person, except here and there
in an alms-house, built for those that axe antient, and past
working. The people in general live long; they enjoy a
good air ; and under such circumstances hard labour is nat-
urally attended with the blessing of health, if not riches. ” 1
1 A Tour Thro' the whole Island of Great Britain^ ed. 1753, hi.
137 *
31 6 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP
To the capitalist, then, rather than to the inventor,
civilization owes the steam engine as a part of daily
life, and Matthew Boulton was one of the most re-
markable of the race of producers whose reign lasted
down to Waterloo. As far back as tradition runs
the Boultons appear to have been Northamptonshire
farmers, but Matthew’s grandfather met with mis-
fortunes under William, and sent his son to Birming-
ham to seek his fortune in trade There the adventurer
established himself as a silver stamper, and there, in
1 728, Matthew was born. Y oung Boulton early showed
both energy and ingenuity, and on coming of age
became his father’s partner, thenceforward managing
the business In 1759, two years after the conquest
of Bengal, the father died, and Matthew, having
married in 1760, might have retired on his wife’s
property, but he chose rather to plunge more deeply
into trade. Extending his works, he built the famous
shops at Soho, which he finished in 1762 at an outlay
of .-£20,000, a debt which probably clung to him to
the end of his life.
Boulton formed his partnership with Watt in 1774,
and then began to manufacture the steam-engine, but
he met with formidable difficulties. Before the sales
yielded any return, the outlay reduced him to the
brink of insolvency; nor did he achieve success until
he had exhausted his own and his friends’ resources.
“ He mortgaged his lands to the last farthing ; borrowed
from his personal friends , raised money by annuities ; ob-
tained advances from bankers ; and had invested upwards
of forty thousand pounds in the enterprise before it began
to pay.” 1
1 Lives 0/ Boulton and IVatt, Smiles, 4S4.
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
317
Agriculture, as well as industry, felt the impulsion
of the new force Arthur Young remarked in 1770,
that within ten years there had been “ more experi-
ments, more discoveries, and more general good
sense displayed in the walk of agriculture than in an
hundred preceding ones ” ; and the reason why such
a movement should have occurred seems obvious.
After 1760 a complex system of credit sprang up,
based on a metallic treasure, and those who could
borrow had the means at their disposal of importing
breeds of cattle, and of improving tillage, as well as
of organizing factories like Soho. The effect was to
cause rapid centralization. The spread of high farm-
ing certainly raised the value of land, but it also made
the position of the yeomanry untenable, and nothing
better reveals the magnitude of the social revolution
wrought by Plassey, than the manner m which the
wastes were enclosed after the middle of the century.
Between 1710 and 1760 only 335,000 acres of the
commons were absorbed, between 1760 and 1843,
nearly 7,000,000. In eighty years the yeomanry be-
came extinct. Many of these small farmers migrated
to the towns, where the stronger, like the ancestoi
of Sir Robert Peel, accumulated wealth m industry,
the weaker sinking into factory hands. Those who
lingered on the land, toiled as day labourers
Possibly since the world began, no investment has
ever yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plun-
der, because for nearly fifty years Great Britain stood
without a competitor. That she should have so long
enjoyed a monopoly seems at first mysterious, but
perhaps the condition of the Continent may suggest
an explanation. Since Italy had been ruined by the
31 8 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP.
loss of the Eastern trade, she had ceased to breed the
economic mind ; consequently no class of her popu-
lation could suddenly and violently accelerate their
movements. In Spain the priest and soldier had so
thoroughly exterminated the sceptic, that far from
centralizing during the seventeenth century, as Eng-
land and France had done, her empire was in full
decline at the revolution of 1688 In France some-
thing similar had happened, though in a much less
degree. After a struggle of a century and a half,
the Church so far prevailed in 1685 as to secure the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. At the revoca-
tion many Huguenots went into exile, and thus no
small proportion of the economic class, who should
have pressed England hardest, were driven across
the Channel, to add their energy to the energy of
the natives. Germany lacked capital. Hemmed in
by enemies, and without a seacoast, she had been
at a disadvantage in predatory warfare ; accordingly
she did not accumulate money, and failed to con-
solidate until, in 1870, she extorted a treasure from
France. Thus, in 1760, Holland alone remained as
a competitor, rich, maritime, and peopled by Protes-
tants. But Holland lacked the mass possessed by
her great antagonist, beside being without minerals;
and accordingly, far from accelerating her progress,
she proved unable to maintain her relative rate of
advance.
Thus isolated, and favoured by mines of coal and
iron, England not only commanded the European and
American markets, at a time when production was
strained to the utmost by war, but even undersold
Hindoo labour at Calcutta. In some imperfect way
XL MODERN CENTRALIZATION 3 19
her gains may be estimated by the growth of her
debt, which must represent savings. In 1756, when
Clive went to India, the nation owed ^74,575,000, on
which it paid an interest of ^2,753,000. In 1815
this debt had swelled to ^861,000,000, with an
annual interest charge of ^32,645,000 In 1761
the Duke of Bridgewater finished the first of the
canals which were afterward to form an inland
water-way costing ^50,000,000, or more than two-
thirds of the amount of the public debt at the out-
break of the Seven Years’ War. Meanwhile, also,
steam had been introduced, factories built, turnpikes
improved, and bridges erected, and all this had been
done through a system of credit extending throughout
the land Credit is the chosen vehicle of energy in
centralized societies, and no sooner had treasure
enough accumulated in London to offer it a founda-
tion, than it shot up with marvellous rapidity.
From 1694 to Plassey, the growth had been rela-
tively slow. For more than sixty years after the
foundation of the Bank of England, its smallest
note had been for £ 20 , a note too large to cir-
culate freely, and which rarely travelled far from
Lombard Street Writing in 1790, Burke mentioned
that when he came to England in 1750 there were
not “twelve bankers’ shops” in the provinces, though
then, he said, they were in every market town. 1 Thus
the arrival of the Bengal silver not only increased the
mass of money, but stimulated its movement ; for at
once, in 1759, the bank issued £10 and £ 1 $ notes,
and, in the country, private firms poured forth a flood
of paper. At the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars,
1 First Letter on a Regicide Peace .
320
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
there were not far from four hundred provincial
houses, many of more than doubtful solvency
Macleod, who usually does not exaggerate such mat-
ters, has said, that grocers, tailors, and drapers inun-
dated the country with their miserable rags, 1
The cause of this inferiority of the country bankers
was the avarice of the Bank of England, which pre-
vented the formation of joint stock companies, who
might act as competitors; and, as the period was
one of great industrial and commercial expansion,
when the adventurous and producing classes con-
trolled society, enough currency of some kind was
kept in circulation to prevent the prices of com-
modities from depreciating relatively to com. The
purchasing power of a currency is, other things being
equal, in proportion to its quantity. Or, to put the
proposition in the words of Locke, “the value of
money, in general, is the quantity of all the money
in the world in proportion to all the trade ” 2 At
the close of the eighteenth century, many causes
combined to make money plentiful, and therefore to
cheapen it. Not only was the stock of bullion in
England increased by importations from India, but,
for nearly a generation, exports of silver to Asia fell
off. From an average of ^600,000 annually between
1740 and 1760, the shipments of specie by the East
India Company fell to ^97,500 between 1760 and
1780; nor did they rise to their old level until after
the close of the administration of Hastings, when
trade returned to normal channels. After 1800 the
stream gathered volume, and between 1810 and 1820
1 Theory and Practice of Banking, i, 507
2 Const derations of the Lowering of Interests , Works, ed. 1823, v. 49,
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
321
the yearly consignment amounted to ;£2, 827,000, or
to nearly one-half of the precious metals yielded by
the mines.
From the crusades to Waterloo, the producers
dominated Europe, the money-lenders often faring
hardly, as is proved by the treatment of the Jews.
From the highest to the lowest, all had wares to
sell; the farmer his crop, the weaver his cloth, the
grocer his goods, and all were interested in maintain-
ing the value of their merchandise relatively to coin,
for they lost when selling on a falling market By
degrees, as competition sharpened after the Refor-
mation, a type was developed which, perhaps, may
be called the merchant adventurer; men like Child
and Boulton, bold, energetic, audacious. Gradually
energy vented itself more and more freely through
these merchants, until they became the ruling power
in England, their government lasting from 1688 to
1815. At length they fell through the very brilliancy
of their genius The wealth they amassed so rapidly,
accumulated, until it prevailed over all other forms
of force, and by so doing raised anothei variety of
man to power. These last were the modern bankers.
With the advent of the bankers, a profound change
came over civilization, for contraction began. Self-
interest had from the outset taught the producer that,
to prosper, he should deal in wares which tended
rather to rise than fall in value, relatively to coin.
The opposite instinct possessed the usurer; he found
that he grew rich when money appreciated, or when
the borrower had to part with more property to pay
his debt when it fell due, than the cash lent him
would have bought on the day the obligation was
Y
322
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
contracted. As, toward the close of the eighteenth
century, the great hoards of London passed into the
possession of men of the latter type, the third and
most redoubtable variety of the economic intellect
arose to prominence, a variety of which perhaps
the most conspicuous example is the family of
Rothschild.
In one of the mean and dirty houses of the Jewish
quarter of Frankfort, Mayer Amschel was bom in
the year 1743. The house was numbered 152 in the
Judengasse, but was better known as the house of
the Red Shield, and gave its name to the Amschel
family. Mayer was educated by his parents for a
rabbi; but, judging himself better fitted for finance,
he entered the service of a Hanoverian banker
named Oppenheim, and remained with him until he
had saved enough to set up for himself. Then for
some years he dealt in old coins, curiosities and bul-
lion, married in 1770, returned to Frankfort, estab-
lished himself in the house of the Red Shield, and
rapidly advanced toward opulence. Soon after he gave
up his trade in curiosities, confining himself to bank-
ing, and his great step in life was made when he be-
came “ Court Jew ” to the Landgrave of Hesse. By
1804 he was already so prosperous that he contracted
with the Danish Government for a loan of four mil-
lions of thalers.
Mayer had five sons, to whom he left his business
and his wealth. In 1812 he died, and, as he lay
upon his death-bed, his last words were, “ You will
soon be rich among the richest, and the world will
belong to you.” 1 His prophecy came true. These
1 The Rothschild*) Reeves, 51*
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
323
five sons conceived and executed an original and dar-
ing scheme. While the eldest remained at Frankfort,
and conducted the parent house, the four others mi-
grated to four different capitals, Naples, Vienna, Paris,
and London, and, acting continually in consort, they
succeeded in obtaining a control over the money
market of Europe, as unprecedented as it was lucra-
tive to themselves.
Of the five brothers, the third, Nathan, had com-
manding ability. In 1798 he settled in London,
married in 1806 the daughter of one of the wealthi-
est of the English Jews, and by 1815 had become the
despot of the Stock Exchange , “ peers and princes
of the blood sat at his table, clergymen and laymen
bowed before him.” He had no tastes, either liter-
ary, social, or artistic ; “ in his manners and address
he seemed to delight in displaying his thorough dis-
regard of all the courtesies and amenities of civilized
life ” ; and when asked about the future of his chil-
dren he said, “ I wish them to give mind, soul, and
heart, and body — everything to business. That is
the way to be happy.” 1 Extremely ostentatious,
though without delicacy or appreciation, “his man-
sions were crowded with works of art, and the most
gorgeous appointments ” His benevolence was capri-
cious ; to quote his own words, “ Sometimes to amuse
myself I give a beggar a guinea. He thinks it is a
mistake, and for fear I shall find it out off he runs as
hard as he can I advise you to give a beggar a
guinea sometimes. It is very amusing.” 2
Though an astonishingly bold and unscrupulous
speculator, Nathan probably won his chief successes
1 The Rothschilds, Reeves, 192, 199. 2 Ibid, 200.
3 2 4
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
by skill in lending, and, in this branch of financier-
ing, he was favoured by the times in which he lived.
During the long wars Europe plunged into debt, con-
tracting loans in depreciated paper, or in coin which
was unprecedentedly cheap because of the abundance
of the precious metals.
In the year 1809, prices reached the greatest altitude
they ever attained in modern, or even, perhaps, in all
history. There is something marvellously impressive
in this moment of time, as the world stood poised upon
the brink of a new era. To the contemporary eye
Napoleon had reached his zenith. Everywhere vic-
torious, he had defeated the English in Spain, and
forced the army of Moore to embark at Corunna;
while at Wagram he had brought Austria to the dust.
He seemed about to rival Coesar, and establish a mili-
tary empire which should consolidate the nations of
the mainland of Europe. Yet m reality one of those
vast and subtle changes was impending, which, by
modifying the conditions under which men compete,
alter the complexion of civilizations, and which has
led in the course of the nineteenth century to the
decisive rejection of the martial and imaginative
mind.
In April 1810 Bolivar obtained control at Caracas,
and, with the outbreak of the South American revolu-
tions, the gigantic but imaginative empire of Spain
passed into the acute stage of disintegration. On
December 19 of the same year, the Emperor Alexander
opened the ports of Russia to neutral trade. By so
doing Alexander repudiated the “ continental system ”
of Napoleon, made a breach with him inevitable, and
thus brought on the campaign of Moscow, the destruc-
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
325
tion of the Grand Army, and the close of French
military triumphs on the hill of Waterloo From the
year 1810, nature has favoured the usurious mind,
even as she favoured it in Rome, from the death of
Augustus
Moreover, both in ancient and modern life, the first
symptom of this profound economic and intellectual
revolution was identical. Tacitus has described the
panic which was the immediate forerunner of the
rise of the precious metals in the first century ; and
in 1810 a similar panic occurred in London, when
prices suddenly fell fifteen per cent, 1 and when the
most famous magnate of the Stock Exchange was
ruined and killed. The great houses of Baring and
of Goldsmid had undertaken the negotiation of a
government loan of £ 14,000,000. To the surprise
of these eminent financiers values slowly receded,
and, in September, the death of Sir Francis Baring
precipitated a crisis ; Abraham Goldsmid, reduced to
insolvency, in despair committed suicide , the acutest
intellects rose instantaneously upon the corpses of the
weaker, and the Rothschilds remained the dictators
of the markets of the world From that day to this
the slow contraction has continued, with only the
break of little more than twenty years, when the gold
of California and Australia came in an overwhelming
flood, and, from that day to this, the same series
of phenomena have succeeded one another, which
eighteen hundred years ago marked the emasculation
of Rome.
1 Wherever reference is made to comparative prices of commodities,
the authority used has been the tables published by W. S. JeYons in
Investigations in Currency and Finance , 144
326
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
At the peace, many causes converged to make
specie rise ; the exports of bullion to the East nearly
doubled ; America grew vigorously, and mining was
interrupted by the revolt of the Spanish colonies.
Yet favourable as the position of the creditor class
might be, it could be improved by legislation, and
probably no financial policy has ever been so ably
conceived, or so adroitly executed, as that master-
piece of state-craft which gave Lombard Street con-
trol of the currency of Great Britain.
Under the reign of the producers, values had gen-
erally been equalized by cheapening the currency
when prices fell. In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries, the penny had been systematically
degraded, to keep pace with the growing dearth ,of
silver When the flood of the Peruvian bullion had
reached its height in 1561, the currency regained its
fineness; but in 1601 the penny lost another half-
grain of weight, and, though not again adulterated at
the mint, the whole coinage suffered so severely from
hard usage that, under the Stuarts, it fell to about
two-thirds of its nominal value A re-coinage took
place under William, but then paper came in to give
relief, and the money in circulation continued to de-
generate, as there was no provision for the with-
drawal of light pieces. By 1 774, the loss upon even
the guinea had become so great that Parliament in-
tervened, and Lord North recommended u that all the
deficient gold coin should be called in, and re-coined ”
and also that the “ currency of the gold coin should,
in future, be regulated by weight as well as by tale
. . . and that the several pieces should not be legal
tender, if they were diminished, by wearing or other*
XI MODERN CENTRALIZATION 327
wise, below a certain weight, to be determined by
proclamation/’ 1
By such means as this, the integrity of the metallic
money was at length secured , but the emission of
paper remained unlimited, and in 1 79 7 even the Bank
of England suspended cash payments Then prices
advanced as they had never advanced before, and,
during the first ten years of the nineteenth century,
the commercial adventurers reached their meridian.
From 1810 they declined in power; but for several
preceding generations they had formed a true aris-
tocracy, shaping the laws and customs of their coun-
try. They needed an abundant currency, and they
obtained it through the Bank. On their side the
directors recognized this duty to be their chief func-
tion, and laid it down as a principle that all legiti-
mate commercial paper should always be discounted.
If interest rose, the rise proved a dearth of money,
and they relieved that dearth with notes.
Lord Overstone has thus explained the system of
banking which was accepted, without question, until
1810: “ A supposed obligation to meet the real wants
of commerce, and to discount all commercial bills
arising out of legitimate transactions, appears to have
been considered as the principle upon which the
amount of the circulation was to be regulated/’ 2
And yet, strangely enough, even the adversaries of
this system admitted that it worked well. A man as
fixed in his opinions as Tooke, could not contain his
astonishment that u under the guidance of maxims
and principles so unsound and of such apparently
1 Annals of the Coinage, Ruchng, iv 37.
* Overstone Tt acts , 49,
328
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP*
mischievous tendency, as those professed by the gov-
ernors and some of the directors of the Bank in 1810,
such moderation and . . . such regularity of issue
should, under chances and changes in politics and
trade, unprecedented in violence and extent, have
been preserved, as that a spontaneous readjustment
between the value of the gold and the paper should
have taken place, as if did, without any reduction of
their circulation.” 1
With such a system the currency tended to fall
rather than to rise in value, in comparison with com-
modities, and for this reason the owners of the great
hoards were at a disadvantage. What powerful
usurers, like Rothschild, wanted, was a legal tender
fixed in quantity, which, being unable to expand to
meet an increased demand, would rise in price.
Moreover, they needed a circulating medium suffi-
ciently compact to be controlled by a comparatively
small number of capitalists, who would thus, under
favourable conditions, hold the whole debtor com-
munity at their mercy.
If the year 1810 be taken as the point at which
the energy stored in accumulations of money began
to predominate in England, the revolution which
ended in the overthrow of the producers, advanced,
with hardly a check, to its completion by the “ Bank
Act” of 1844. The first symptom of approaching
change was the famous “Bullion Committee,” ap-
pointed on the motion of Francis Horner in 1810.
This repoit is most interesting, for it marks an epoch,
and in it the struggle for supremacy between the
lender and the borrower is brought out in full relief*
1 History of Pruts, i. 158.
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
329
To the producer, the commodity was the measure of
value ; to the banker, coin The producer sought a
currency which should retain a certain ratio to all
commodities, of which gold was but one. The
banker insisted on making a fixed weight of the
metal he controlled, the standard from which there
was no appeal.
A distinguished merchant, named Chambers, in
his evidence before the Committee, put the issue in a
nutshell : —
Q . " At the Mint price of standard gold in this country,
how much gold does a Bank of England note for one pound
represent ?
A. “ 5 dwts. 3 grs.
Q . “ At the present market price of standard gold of
£< 4 12. per ounce, how much gold do you get for a Bank
of England note for one pound ?
A . “ 4 dwts. 8 grs.
Q . u Do you consider that a Bank of England note for
one pound, under these present circumstances, is exchange-
able m gold for what it represents of that metal ?
A “ I do not conceive gold to be a fairer standard for
Bank of England notes than indigo or broadcloth.”
Although the bankers controlled the “ Bullion Com-
mittee/* the mercantile interest still maintained itself
in Parliament, and the resolutions proposed by the
chairman m his report were rejected in the Commons
by a majority of* about two to one. The tide, how-
ever, had turned, and perhaps the best index of the
moment at which the balance of power shifted, may
be the course of Peel. Of all the public men of his
generation, Peel had the surest instinct for the strong-
est force. Rarely, if ever, did this instinct fail him,
330
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
and after 1812 his intuition led him to separate from
his father; as, later in life, it led him to desert his
party in the crisis of 1845. The first Sir Robert
Peel, the great manufacturer, who made the fortune
of the family, had the producer’s instinct and utterly
opposed contraction In 18 n he voted against
the report of the Bullion Committee, and then his
son voted with him After 1816, however, the
younger Peel became the spokesman of Lombard
Street, and the story is told that when the bill pro-
viding for cash payments passed in July, 1819, the
old man, after listening to his son’s great speech,
said with bitterness : “ Robert has doubled his fort-
une, but ruined his country ” 1
Probably Waterloo marked the opening of the new
era, for after Waterloo the bankers met with no
serious defeat. At first they hardly encountered
opposition. They began by discarding silver. In
1817 the government made grs. of gold the
unit of value, the coin representing this weight of
metal ceasing to be a legal tender when deficient by
about half a grain. The standard having thus been
determined, it remained to enforce it. By this time
Peel had been chosen by the creditor class as their
mouthpiece, and in 1819 he introduced a bill to pro-
vide for cash payments He found little resistance
to his measure, and proposed 1823 as the time for
the return ; as it happened, the dat£ was anticipated,
and notes were redeemed in gold from May i, 1821.
As far as the coinage was concerned, this legislation
completed the work, but the task of limiting discounts
remained untouched, a task of even more importance,
1 Political Life of Sir Robert Peel , Doubleday, i. 218, note.
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
33 *
for, as long as the Bank continued discounting bills,
and thus emitting an unlimited ^quantity of notes
whenever the rate of interest rose, debtors not only
might always be able to face their obligations, but the
worth of money could not be materially enhanced.
This question was decided by the issue of the panic
of 1825, brought on by the Resumption Act.
At the suspension of 1797, paper in small denomi-
nations had been authorized to replace the coin
which disappeared, but this act expired two years
after the return to specie payments. Therefore, as
time elapsed, the small issues began to be called in,
and, according to Macleod, the country circulation,
by 1823, had contracted about twelve per cent The
Bank of England also withdrew a large body of notes
in denominations less than five pounds, and, to fill
the gap, hoarded some twelve million sovereigns, a
mass of gold about equal to the yield of the mines
for the preceding seven or eight years This gold
had to be taken from the currency of Europe, and the
sudden contraction caused a shock which vibrated
throughout the West.
In France gold coinage almost ceased, and prices
dropped heavily, declining twenty-four per cent
between 1819 and 1822. Yet perhaps the most
vivid picture of the distress caused by this absorption
of gold, is given in a passage written by Macleod, to
prove that PeeFs act had nothing to do with the
catastrophe : —
“ There was one perfectly satisfactory argument to show
that the low prices of that year had nothing to do with the
Act of 1819, namely, that prices of all sorts of agricultural
produce were equally depressed all over the continent of
332
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Europe from the same cause. The fluctuations, indeed, on
the continent were much more violent than even m Eng-
land. . . . The same phenomena were observed in Italy.
A similar fall, but not to so great an extent, took place at
Lisbon. What could the Act of 1819 have to do with these
places ? " 1
The severe and protracted depression, while affect-
ing all producers, bore with peculiar severity upon
the gentry, whose estates were burdened with mort-
gages and all kinds of settlements, so much so that
frequently properties sank below their encumbrances,
and the owners were beggared At the opening
of Parliament, both Houses were overwhelmed with
petitions for aid. Among these petitions, one of
the best known was presented to the Commons in
May, 1822, by Charles Andrew Thompson, of Chis-
wick, which serves to show the keenness of the dis-
tress among debtors owning land.
Thompson stated, in substance, that in 1811 he
and his father, being wealthy merchants, purchased
an estate in Hertfordshire for £62,000, and after-
ward laid out £10,000 more in improvements. That
in 1812 they entered into a contract for another
estate, whose price w§ls ,£60,000, but, a question
having arisen as to the title, a lawsuit intervened,
and, before judgment, the petitioner and his father
had experienced such losses that they could not pay
the sum adjudged due by the court. Thereupon,
to raise money, they mortgaged both estates for
£65,000. In July, 1821, both estates were offered
for sale, but they failed to bring the amount for
which they were mortgaged. Estates in other coun-
' 1 Theory and Practice of Banking Macleod, ed. 1893, & xo 3 *
Xi. MODERN CENTRALIZATION 33$
ties which cost ^33,16 6, had been sold for ^12,000,
and through the depression of trade the petitioners
had become bankrupt. In 1822 the petitioner's
father died of a broken heart; and he himself
remained a ruined man, with seven children of his
own, ten of his brother’s, and seven of his sister’s all
depending on him 1
The nation seemed upon the brink of some con-
vulsion, for the gentry hardly cared to disguise their
design of effecting a readjustment of both public
and private debts Passions ran high, and in June,
1822, a long debate followed upon a motion, made
by Mr. Western, to inquire into the effects produced
by the resumption of cash payments The motion
was indeed defeated, but defeated by a concession
which entailed a catastrophe up to that time un-
equalled in the experience of Great Britain. To save
the “ Resumption Act ” the ministry in July brought
in a bill to respite the small notes until 1833, a meas-
ure which at once quieted the agitation, but which
produced the most far-reaching and unexpected re-
sults.
According to Francis, the country banks aug-
mented their issues fifty per cent between 1822 and
1 82 5, 2 nor was this increase of paper the only or the
most serious form taken by the inflation. The great
hoard of sovereigns, accumulated by the Bank to
replace its small notes, was made superfluous ; and,
in a memorandum delivered by the directors to the
House of Commons, no less than ^14,200,000 were
stated to have been thrown on their hands in 1824
1 See Hansard, New Series, viu. 189.
a History of the Bmk of England, 1. 348.
334
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
by this change of policy. 1 The effect was to create
a veritable glut of gold in the United Kingdom;
prices rose abnormally — fifteen per cent — between
1824 and 1825.
As values tended upward, a frenzy of speculation
seized upon a people who had long suffered from the
grinding of contraction, and meanwhile the Bank,
adhering to its old policy, freely discounted all the
sound bills brought them. In 1824 prices rose above
the Continental level, and gold, being cheaper in
London than in Paris, began to flow thither. The
Bank reserve steadily fell. In March, 1825, the
fever reached its height, and a decline set in, while
the directors, anxious at the condition of their reserve
in May, attempted to restrict their issues. The con-
sequence was sharp contraction, and in November
the crash came. Mr. Huskisson stated, in the House
of Commons, that for forty-eight hours it was impos-
sible to convert even government securities into cash
Exchequer bills, bank stock, and East India stock
were alike unsalable, and many of the richest mer-
chants of London walked the streets, not knowing
whether on the morrow they might not be insolvent.
“It is said” the Bank itself “must have stopped
payment, and that we should have been reduced to a
state of barter, but for a box full of old one and two-
pound notes which was discovered by accident.”®
What happened in the Bank parlour during those
days is unknown. Probably the pressure of the
mercantile classes became too sharp to be withstood,
perhaps even the strongest bankers were alarmed;
1 History of the Bank of England^ L 347,
3 History of the Currency, Maclaren, x6x.
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
335
but, at all events, the financial policy changed com-
pletely. Contraction was abandoned, the Bank re-
verted to the system of 1810, and in an instant
relief came. “We lent by every possible means,
and in modes we had never adopted before; , . .
we not only discounted outright, but we made ad-
vances on deposit of bills of exchange to an im-
mense amount.” The Bank emitted five millions in
notes in four days, and “ this audacious policy was
crowned with the most complete success, the panic
was stayed almost immediately/’ 1
With an expansion of the currency sufficient to
furnish the means of paying debts, the panic passed
away, but the disaster gave the bankers their oppor-
tunity; they seized it, and thenceforward their hold
upon the community never, even for an instant, re-
laxed. The administration fell into discredit, and
turned for assistance to the only men who promised
to give them effective support : these were the capi-
talists of Lombard Street, whose first care was to
obtain a statute prohibiting the small notes, which,
they alleged, were the cause of the misfortune of
1825, The act they demanded passed in 1826, and
about this time Samuel Loyd rose into prominence,
who was, perhaps, the greatest financier of modern
times. Cautious and sagacious, though resolute and
bold, gifted with an amazing penetration into the
complex causes which control the competition of mod-
em life, he swayed successive administrations, and
crushed down the fiercest opposition. Apparently
he never faltered in his course, and down to the day
of his death he sneered at the panic-stricken direc*
1 Theory and Practice of Bankings Macleod, ii. X17, n8.
336
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
tors, who only saved themselves from bankruptcy by
accidentally remembering and issuing a “ parcel of
old discarded one-pound notes . . . drawn forth from
a refuse cellar in 1825.” 1
Loyd’s father began life somewhat humbly as a
dissenting minister in Wales, but, after his marriage,
he entered a Manchester firm, and subsequently
founded in London the house of Jones, Loyd and
Co,, afterward merged in the London and Westmin-
ster Bank, one of the largest concerns in the world,
Samuel did not actually succeed his father until 1844,
but much earlier he had grown to be the recognized
chief of the monied interest, and Sir Robert Peel long
served as his lieutenant. Loyd was the man who
conceived the Bank Act of 1844, who succeeded in
laying his grasp upon the currency of the kingdom,
and in whose words, therefore, the policy of the new
governing class is best stated : —
“ A paper-circulation is the substitution of paper ... in
the place of the precious metals. The amount of it ought
therefore to be equal to what would have been the amount
of a metallic circulation ; and of this the best measure is
the influx or efflux of bullion.” 2
By the provisions of that Act [the Bank Act of 1844] it
is permitted to issue notes to the amount of ^14,000,000
as before — that is, with no security for the redemption of
the notes on demand beyond the legal obligation so to
redeem them. But all fluctuations in the amount of notes
issued beyond this ;£ 14,000,000 must have direct reference
to corresponding fluctuations in the amount of gold.” s
Thus Loyd’s principle, which he embodied in his
statute, was the rigid limitation of the currency to
1 Over stone Tracts , 325, 2 Ibid., 191. 2 Ibid., 318,
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
337
the weight of gold available for money. ‘'When
. . . notes are permitted to be issued, the number in
circulation should always be exactly equal to the coin
which would be in circulation if they did not exist.” 1
In 1845 the Bank Act was extended to Scotland, ex-
cept that there small notes were still tolerated ; the
expansion of provincial paper was prohibited, and
England reverted to the economic condition of By-
zantium, — a condition of contraction in which the
debtor class lies prostrate, for, the legal tender being
absolutely limited, when creditors choose to withdraw
their loans, payment becomes impossible.
Perhaps no financier has ever lived abler than
Samuel Loyd. Certainly he understood as few men,
even of later generations, have understood, the
mighty engine of the single standard He compre-
hended that, with expanding trade, an inelastic cur-
rency must rise in value ; he saw that, with sufficient
resources at command, his class might be able to es-
tablish such a rise, almost at pleasure ; certainly that
they could manipulate it when it came, by taking
advantage of foreign exchanges. He perceived
moreover that, once established, a contraction of the
currency might be forced to an extreme, and that
when money rose beyond price, as in 1825, debtors
would have to surrender their property on such terms
as creditors might dictate.
Furthermore, he reasoned that under pressure
prices must fall to a point lower than in other nations,
that then money would flow from abroad, and relief
would ultimately be given, even if the government
did not interfere ; that this influx of gold would in-
1 Theory and Practice of Banking ii, 147.
z
338
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAR
crease the quantity of money, by so doing would
again raise prices, and that, when prices rose, pledges
forfeited in the panic might be resold at an advance.
He explained the principle of this rise and fall of
values, with his usual lucidity, to a committee of the
House of Lords, which investigated the panic of
1847: —
" Monetary distress tends to produce fall of prices ;
that fall of prices encourages exports and diminishes
imports ; consequently it tends to promote an influx
of bullion. I can quote a fact of rather a striking
character, which tends to show that a contracting
operation upon the circulation tends to cheapen the
cost of our manufactured productions, and therefore
to increase our exports.” He then stated that during
the panic he had received a letter “ from a person of
great importance in Lancashire,” begging him to use
his influence with the ministry “ to be firm in main-
taining the act, — to be firm in resisting these appli-
cations for relaxation,” because in Lancashire the
manufacturers were struggling to “ resist the improp-
erly high price of the raw material of cotton.” “ That
letter reached me the very morning that the letter of
the government was issued [suspending the act],
and almost immediately the raw cotton rose in price.”
Q. “ The writer of that letter was probably a man of con-
siderable substance, a very wealthy man, with abundant cap-
ital to carry on his business ?
A. “ He had recently retired from business. I can state
another circumstance that occurred m London corroborative
of the same results. Within half an hour of the time that
the notes summoning the Court of Directors . . . were
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
339
issued, parties, inferring probably . . . that a relaxation
was about to take place, sent orders to withdraw goods from
a sale which was then going on.” 1
The history of half a century has justified the diag-
nosis of this eminent financier. As followed out by
his successors, Loyd's policy has not only forced
down prices throughout the West, but has changed
the aspect of civilization In England the catas-
trophe began with the passage of the Bank Act
No sooner had this statute taken effect than it
necessarily caused a contraction of the currency at
a time when gold was rising because of commercial
expansion. Between 1839 anc * 1849 there was a fall
in prices of twenty-eight per cent, and, severe as may
have been the decline, it seems moderate considering
the conditions which then prevailed. The yield of
the mines was scanty, and of this yield India absorbed
annually an average of ^2,308,000, 01 somewhat
more than one-sixth.
America was growing with unprecedented vigour,
industrial competition sharpened' as prices fell, and
the year of the “ Bank Act ” was the year in which
railway building began to take the form of a mania.
The peasantry are always the weakest part of every
population, and therefore agricultural prices are the
most sensitive. But the resources of a peasantry
are seldom large, and, as the value of their crops
shrinks, the margin of profit on which they live
dwindles, until they are left with only a bare subsis-
tence in good years, and with famine facing them in
bad. The Irish peasants were the weakest portion
1 Overstone Tracts* 573, 574.
340
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CH VP#
of the population of Great Britain when Lord Over-
stone became supreme, and when the potato crop
failed in 1845 they starved.
Although the landlords had lost their command over
the nation in 1688, they yet, down to the last adminis-
tration of Peel, had kept strength enough to secure
protection from Parliament against foreign competi-
tion. By 1815 the yeomanry had almost disappeared,
the soil belonged to a few rich families whose revenue
depended on rents, and the value of rents turned on
the price of the cereals. To sustain the market for
wheat became therefore all-important to the aristoc
racy, and when, with the peace, prices collapsed, they
obtained a statute which prohibited imports until the
bushel should fetch ten shillings at home.
This statute, though frequently amended to make
it more effective, partially failed of its purpose. A
contracting currency did its resistless work, prices
dropped, tenants went bankrupt, and, as the value of
money rose, encumbered estates passed more fre-
quently into the hands of creditors. Thus when Peel
took office in 1841, the Corn Laws were regarded by
the gentry as their only hope, and Peel as their chosen
champion; but only a few years elapsed before it
became evident that the policy of Lombard Street
must precipitate a struggle for life between the
manufacturers and the landlords. In the famine of
1846 the decisive moment came, and when Sir Robert
sided, as was his wont, with the strongest, and aban-
doned his followers to their fate, he only yielded to
the impulsion of a resistless force.
As a class both landlords and manufacturers were
debtors, and, by 1844, cheap bread appeared to be as
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
34 *
vital to the one as dear corn was to the other With
a steadily falling market the manufacturers saw their
margin of profit shrink, and at last Manchester and
Birmingham believed themselves to be confronted
with ruin unless wages fell proportionately, or they
could broaden the market for their wares by means
of international exchanges. The Corn Laws closed
both avenues 'of relief; therefore there was war to
the death between the manufacturers and the aris-
tocracy The savageness of the attack can be judged
by Cobden’s jeers at gentlemen who admitted that
free corn meant insolvency : —
“ Sir Edward Knatchbull could not have made a better
speech foi the League than that which he made lately, even
if he were paid for it. I roared so with laughter that he
called me specially to older, and I begged his pardon, for
he is the last man in the world I would offend, we are all so
much obliged to him He said they could not do without
this Corn Law, because, if it were repealed, they could not
pay the jointures, charged on their estates. Lord Mount-
cashel, too (he’s not over-sharp) said that one half the land
was mortgaged, and they could not pay the interest unless
they had a tax upon bread. In Lancashire, when a man gets
into debt and can’t pay, he goes into the Gazette , and what
is good for a manufacturer is, I think, good for a landlord .” 1
In such a contest the gentry were overmatched, for
they were but nature's first effort toward creating the
economic type, and they were pitted against later
forms which had long distanced them in the competi-
tion of life. Bright and Cobden, as well as Loyd
and Peel, belonged to a race which had been driven
into trade, by the loss of their freeholds to the for-
1 Cobden and the League , Ashworth, 174.
342
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
tunate ancestors of the men who lay at their mercy in
1846. Peel himself was the son of a cotton-spinner,
and the grandson of a yeoman, who, only in middle
life, had quitted his hand-loom to make his fortune in
the “industrial revolution.”
In modern England, as in ancient Italy, the weak-
est sank first, and the landed gentry succumbed,
almost without resistance, to the combination which
Lombard Street made against them. Yet, though
the manufacturers seemed to triumph, their exultation
was short, for the fate impended over them, even in
the hour of their victory, which always overhangs
the debtor when the currency has been seized by the
creditor class. By the “ Bank Act ” the usurers be-
came supreme, and in '1846 the potato crop failed
even more completely than in 1845. Credit always is
more sensitive in England than in France, because
it rests upon a narrower basis, and at that moment it
happened to be strained by excessive railway loans.
With free trade in corn, large imports of wheat were
made, which were paid for with gold. A drain set
in upon the Bank, the reserve was depleted, and by
October 2, 1847, the directors denied all further
advances. Within three years of the passage of
his statute, the event Loyd had foreseen arrived.
“Monetary distress” began to force down prices.
The decision of the directors to refuse discounts
created “ a great excitement on the Stock Exchange.
The town and country bankers hastened to sell their
public securities, to convert them into money. The
difference between the price of consols for ready
money and for the account of the 14th of October
showed a rate of interest equivalent to 50 per cent
X!.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
343
per annum. Exchequer bills were sold at 3$s. dis-
count ” . . . “ A complete cessation of private dis-
counts followed. No one would part with the money
or notes in his possession. The most exorbitant
sums were offered to and refused by merchants for
their acceptances.” 1
Additional gold could only be looked for from
abroad, and as a considerable time must elapse before
specie could arrive in* sufficient quantity to give
relief, the currency actually in use offered the only
means of obtaining legal tender for the payment of
debts. Consequently hoarding became general, and,
as the chancellor of the exchequer afterward ob-
served, “an amount of circulation which, under
ordinary circumstances, would have been adequate,
became insufficient for the wants of the community.”
Boxes of gold and bank-notes in “thousands and
tens of thousands of pounds ” were “ deposited with
bankers.” The merchants, the chancellor said,
begged for notes : “ Let us have notes ; we
don't care what the rate of interest is. . . . Only *
tell us that we can get them, and this will at once
restore confidence.” 2
But, after October 2 , no notes were to be had,
money was a commodity without price, and had the
policy of the “ Bank Act ” been rigorously main-
tained, English debtors, whose obligations then
matured, must have forfeited their property, since
credit had ceased to exist and currency could not be
obtained wherewith to redeem their pledges.
The instinct of the, usurer has, however, never
1 Theory ami Pi a due of Banking, Macleod, 11. 169, 170.
2 Hansard, Third Series, xcv. 399,
344
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP
been to ruin suddenly the community in which he
has lived : only by degrees does he exhaust human
vitality Therefore, when the great capitalists had
satisfied their appetites, they gave relief. From the
2d to the 25th of October, contraction was allowed
to do its work ; then Overstone intervened, the gov-
ernment was instructed to suspend the “act,” and
the community was promised all the currency it
might require.
The effect was instantaneous. The letter from
the cabinet, signed by Lord John Russell, which
recommended the directors of the Bank to increase
their discounts, “ was made public about one o’clock
on Monday, the 25th, and no sooner was it done so
than the panic vanished like a dream ! Mr. Gurney
stated that it produced its effect in ten minutes ! No
sooner was it known that notes might be had, than
the want of them ceased ! ” 1 Large parcels of notes
were “ returned to the . Bank of England cut into
halves, as they had been sent down into the country.”
The story of this crisis demonstrates that, by 1844,
the money-lenders had become autocratic in London,
The ministry were naturally unwilling to suspend a
statute which had just been enacted, and the blow
to Sir Robert Peel was peculiarly severe; but the
position of the government admitted of no alterna-
tive, At the time it was said that the private
bankers of London intimated to the chancellor of
the exchequer that, unless he interfered forthwith,
they would withdraw their balances from the Bank
of England. This meant insolvency, and to such
an argument there was no reply. But whether mat-
1 Theory and Practice of Banking, ii, 170.
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
345
ters actually went so far or not, there can be no
question that the cabinet acted under the dictation
of Lombard Street, for the chancellor of the ex-
chequer defended his policy by declaring that the
“act” had not been suspended until “those con-
versant with commercial affairs, and least likely to
decide in favour of the course which we ultimately
adopted,” unanimously advised that relief should be
given to the mercantile community. 1
There was extreme suffering throughout the coun-
try, which manifested itself in all the well-known
ways. The revenue fell off, emigration increased,
wheat brought but about five shillings the bushel,
while in England and Wales alone there were up-
wards of nine hundred thousand paupers. Discon-
tent took the form of Chartism, and a revolution
seemed imminent. Nor was it Great Britain only
which was convulsed : all Europe was shaken to its
centre, and everything portended some dire convul-
sion, when nature intervened and poured upon the
world a stream of treasure too bountiful to be at
once controlled.
In 1849 the first Californian gold reached Liver-
pool In four years the supply of the precious
metals trebled, prices rose, crops sold again at a
profit As the farmers grew rich, the demand for
manufactures quickened, wages advanced, discontent
vanished, and though values never again reatched
the altitude of 1 809, they at least attained that level
of substantial prosperity which preceded the French
Revolution. Nevertheless, the fall in the purchas-
ing power of money, and the consequent ability of
1 Hansard, Third Series, xcv. 398.
34 ^
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
debtors to meet their obligations, did not excite that
universal joy which had thrilled Europe at the dis-
covery of Potosi, for a profound change had passed
over society since the buccaneers laid the foundations
of England's fortune by the plunder of the Peruvian
galleons.
To the type of mind which predominated after
1 8 IO, the permanent rise of commodities relatively
to money was unwelcome, and, almost from the
opening of the gold discoveries, a subtle but resist-
less force was working for contraction — a force
which first showed itself in the movement for an
uniform gold coinage, and afterwards in general
gold monometallism. The great change came with
the conquest of France by Germany. Until after
the middle of the nineteenth century, Germany held
only a secondary position in the economic system
of Europe, because of her poverty. With few har-
bours, she had reaped little advantage from the
plunder of America and India, exchanges had never
centred within her.borders, and her accumulated cap-
ital had not sufficed to stimulate high consolidation.
The conquest of France suddenly transformed these
conditions. In 1871 she acquired an enormous booty,
and the effect upon her was akin to the effect on Eng-
land of the confiscations in Bengal ; the chief differ-
ence being that, unlike England, Germany passed
almost immediately into the period of contraction.
The spoliation of India went on for twenty years,
that of France was finished in a few months, and,
while in England the “industrial revolution” inter-
vened between Plassey and the adoption of the gold
standard, in Germany the bankers dominated from
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
347
the outset. The government belonged to the class
which desired an appreciating currency, and in 1873
the new empire followed in the steps of Lombard
Street, and demonetized silver.
Germany’s action was decisive. Restrictions were
placed on the mints of the Latin Union and of the
United States, and thus, by degrees, the whole stress
of the trade of the West was transferred from the
old composite currency to gold alone. In this way,
not only was the basis of credit in the chief com-
mercial states cut in half, but the annual supply of
metal for coinage was diminished. In 1893 the gold
mined fell nearly nine per cent short of the value
of the gold and silver produced in 1865, and yet,
during those twenty-eight years, the demand for
money must have increased enormously, if it in any
degree corresponded with the growth of trade
The phenomena which followed the adoption of
the gold standard by Western countries were precisely
those which had been anticipated by Loyd. Lord
Overstone had explained them to an earlier genera-
tion. In one of his letters on the “Bank Charter/’
as early as 1855, he developed the whole policy of
the usurers : —
“If a country increases in population, in wealth, m enter-
prise, and activity, more circulating medium will probably
be required to conduct its extended transactions. This
demand for increased circulation will raise the value of the
existing circulation , it will become more scarce and more
valuable, . , . in other words — gold will rise. . . 7’ 1
By the action of Germany, Overstone’s policy was
extended to the whole Western world, with the
1 Over stone Tracts , 319.
348
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
results he had foreseen. Gold appreciated, until it
acquired a purchasing power unequalled since the
Middle Ages, and while in the silver-using countries
prices remained substantially unchanged and the pro-
ducers accordingly prospered, prostration supervened
in Europe, the United States, and Australia. As
usual the rural population suffered most, and the
English aristocracy, who had been respited by the
gold discoveries, were the first to succumb. They
not only drew their revenues from farming land,
but, standing at the focus of competition, they were
exposed to the pressure of Asia and America alike.
The harvest of 1879 was one of the worst of the
century, land depreciated hopelessly, and that year
may probably be taken as marking the downfall of a
class which had maintained itself in opulence for
nearly three hundred and fifty years.
This Tudor aristocracy, which sprang up at the
Reformation, was one of the first effects of the quick-
ened movement which transferred the centre of
exchanges from Italy to the North Sea. They repre-
sented sharpening economic competition, and they
prospered because of an intellectual gift, an aptitude
they enjoyed, of absorbing the lands of the priests
and soldiers amidst whom they dwelt. These sol-
diers were the yeomen who, when evicted, became
pirates, slavers, commercial adventurers, religious
colonists, and conquerors, and who together poured
the flood of treasure into London which, transmuted
into movement, made the “industrial revolution.”
When by their efforts, toward the beginning of the
nineteenth century, sufficiently vast reservoirs of
energy in the shape of money had accumulated, a
XI.
MODERN CENTRALIZATION
349
new race rose to prominence, fitted to give vent to
this force — men like Nathan Rothschild and Samuel
Loyd, probably endowed with a subtler intellect and
a keener vision than any who had preceded them,
financiers beside whom the usurers of Byzantium, or
the nobles ot Henry VIII , were pigmies.
These bankers conceived a policy unrivalled in
brilliancy, which made them masters of all commerce,
industry, and trade They engrossed the gold of
the world, and then, by legislation, made it the sole
measure of values What Samuel Loyd and his
followers did to England, in 1847, became possible
for his successors to do to all the gold standard
nations, after 1873. When the mints had been closed
to silver, the currency being inelastic, the value of
money could be manipulated like that of any article
limited in quantity, and thus the human race became
the subjects of the new aristocracy, which represented
the stored energy of mankind.
From the moment this aristocracy has determined
on a policy, as, for example the “Bank Act” or mono-
metallism, resistance by producers becomes most diffi-
cult. Being debtors, producers are destroyed when
credit is withdrawn, and, at the first signs of insubor-
dination, the bankers draw in their gold, contract
their loans, ancj precipitate a panic Then, to escape
immediate ruin, the debtor yields
Since 1873 prices have generally fallen, and the
mortgage has tended to engulf the pledge ; but, from
time to time the creditor class feels the need of turn-
ing the property it has acquired from bankrupts into
gold, and then the rise explained by Overstone takes
place. The hoards are opened, credit is freely given,
350
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP,
the quantity of currency is increased, values rise, sales
are made, and new adventurers contract fresh obliga-
tions Then this expansion is followed by a fresh
contraction, and liquidation* is repeated on an ever-
descending scale.
For many years farming land has fallen through-
out the West, as it fell in Italy in the time of Pliny.
Everywhere, as under Trajan, the peasantry are dis-
tressed, everywhere they migrate to the cities, as
they did when Rome repudiated the denarius. By
the census of the United Kingdom taken in 1891, not
only did it appear that over seventy-one per cent of
the inhabitants of England and Wales lived in towns,
but that, while the urban districts had increased above
fifteen per cent since the last census, the population
of the purely agricultural counties had diminished. 1
Moreover, within a generation, there has been a
marked loss of fecundity among the more costly
races. The rate of increase of the population has
diminished. In the United States it is generally be-
lieved that the old native American blood is hardly
reproducing itself; but, in all social phenomena,
France precedes other nations by at least a quarter
of a century, and it is, therefore, in France that the
failure of vitality is most plainly seen. In 1789 the
average French family consisted of 4 2 children. In
1891 it had fallen to 2.1, 2 and, since 1890, the deaths
seem to have equalled the births. 3 In 1889 legisla-
tion was attempted to encourage productiveness, and
patents of seven children were exempted from cer-
1 See Journal of Roy. Stat Soc. t liv. 464.
3 Denombrement tie 1S91, 261.
* Annuairt de V&concniie Politique^ 1894, Block, x8.
XL MODERN CENTRALIZATION 35 1
tain classes of taxes, but the experiment failed.
Levasseur, in his great work on the population of
France, has expressed himself almost in the words of
Tacitus : “ It can be laid down as a general law that,
if in such a social condition as that of the French of
the nineteenth century, the number of children is
small, it is because the majority of parents wish it
should be small ” 1
Such signs point to the climax of consolidation.
And yet, even the rise of the bankers is not the only
or the surest indication that centralization is culmi-
nating. The destruction, wrought by accelerated
movement, of the less tenacious organisms, is more
evident below than above, is more striking in the
advance of cheap labour, than in the evolution of
the financier.
1 La Population Franfaise, ii. 214.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUSION
Apparently nature needs to consume about three
generations in perfecting the selection of a new type.
Accordingly the money-lenders did not become abso-
lute immediately after Waterloo, and a period of some
sixty years followed during which the adventurers
kept up a struggle, wherein they were aided by the
discoveries of gold near the middle of the century.
Seemingly they met their final defeat at Sedan, for
the decay of the soldier, which had been in progress
since the fall of Napoleon, reached a point, after the
collapse of the Second Empire, even lower than after
the consolidation of Rome.
From Alaric to Napoleon the soldier had served as
an independent vent to energy. Often, even when
opposed to capital, he had been victorious, and the
highest function of a leader of men had been, in
theory at least, military command. The ideal states-
man had been one who, like Cromwell, Frederic
the Great, Henry IV., William III., and Washington,
could lead his followers in battle, and, on the Con-
tinent, down to 1 789, the aristocracy had professedly
been a military caste. In France and Germany the
old tradition lasted to within a generation. Only
after 1871 came the new era, an era marked by many
35 *
CHAP. XII.
CONCLUSION
353
social changes. For the first time in their history
the ruler of the French people passed admittedly from
the martial to the monied type, and everywhere the
same phenomenon appeared ; the whole administra-
tion of society fell into the hands of the economic
man. Nothing so radical happened at Rome, or
even at Byzantium, for there the pressure of the bar-
barians necessitated the retention of the commander
at the head of the State ; m Europe he lost this
importance Since the capitulation of Paris the sol-
dier has tended to sink more and more into a paid
official, receiving his orders from financiers with
his salary, without being allowed a voice even in
questions involving peace and war. The same fate
has overtaken the producing classes , they have
failed to maintain themselves, and have become
subjects of the possessors of hoaided wealth. Al-
though the conventions of popular government are
still preserved, capital is at least as absolute as under
the Caesars, and, among capitalists, the money-lenders
form an aristocracy. Debtors are in reality power-
less, because of the extension of that very system of
credit which they invented to satisfy their needs.
Although the volume of credit is gigantic, the basis
on which it rests is so narrow that it may be manipu-
lated by a handful of men. That basis is gold ; in
gold debts must be paid ; therefore, when gold is
withdrawn, the debtor is helpless and becomes the
servant of his master. The elasticity of the age of
expansion has gone.
The aristocracy which wields this autocratic power
is beyond attack, for it is defended by a wage-earning
police, by the side of which the legions were a toy;
354
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAR
a police so formidable that, for the first time in his-
tory, revolt is hopeless and is not attempted. The
only question which preoccupies the ruling class is
whether it is cheaper to coerce or to bribe.
On looking back over long periods of time, the se-
quence of causes may be followed which have led to
this result. First, inventions from the East facilitated
trade ; then, the perfection of weapons of attack made
police possible, and individual bravery unnecessary ;
on this followed the abasement of the martial* and
exaltation of the economic type , and finally that in-
tense acceleration of movement by machinery super-
vened, which, in annihilating space, has destroyed the
protection that the costly races long enjoyed against
the competition of simpler organisms
Roman civilization was less complex than modern
because of the relative inflexibility of the Latin mind.
Unable to quicken his motions by inventions, the an-
cient Italian failed to discover America or absorb India,
and, for the same reason, collapsed without an effort
under the insidious attack of Asiatic and African
labour. No industrial expansion followed the influx
of bullion under Caesar, and therefore, when the value
of cereals fell, the evicted farmer either sank into
slavery or begged for bread from the magnates of
the Senate. In modern times an industrial period
has intervened ; the evicted long found employment
in the factories of the towns, and it has only been as
contraction has reduced the demand for merchandise,
by diminishing the purchasing power of the agricult-
ural population, that those stagnant pools of the un-
employed have collected, which exactly correspond to
the proletariat. But, as each special faculty which,
CONCLUSION
355
XXX.
for a time, enables its possessor to excel in competi-
tion, seems to bear with it the seeds of its own decay,
so the inventive, which once enabled the Western
races to undersell the Eastern in their homes seems
destined to reduce all to a common economic level,
as Rome sank to the level of Egypt
For nearly a century the inventions of Hargreaves,
of Crompton, of Cartwright, and of Watt, enabled
Lancashire to supply Bombay and Calcutta with fab-
rics, as, in the seventeenth century, Surat and Calicut
had supplied London, and this superiority appeared
assured until Orientals should acquire the momentum
necessary for machinery One effect in Europe was
the rapid increase of a population congregated in
towns, and bearing a marked resemblance to the
“ humiliores ” of Rome in their disinclination for
war. True to their instincts, the adventurers ever
quickened their movements, ever extended the
sphere of their enterprises, and, finally, just as the
Second Empire verged upon its fall, they opened
the Suez Canal in 1869. The consequences of this
great engineering triumph have probably equalled in
gravity the establishment of the gold standard, but
the two phenomena had this marked difference.
The producers saw their danger and resisted to the
utmost the contraction of the currency, whereas the
Canal was a case of suicide. Thenceforward grain,
raised by the most enduring labour of the world, could
be thrown without limit on the European market, and,
agricultural competition once established, industrial
could only be a question of time. The Canal made
the importation and the reparation of machinery
cheap throughout Asia,
356 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY chap.
From a period, perhaps, as remote as Clive’s vic-
tories, the Hindoos had experienced a certain impul-
sion from contact with the British, but it was not
until the building of railroads, under Lord Dalhousie,
that the severer phases of competition opened among
the inhabitants of India. Lord Dalhousie became
Governor General in 1848, and, that the acceleration
of the next nine years culminated in a catastrophe
seems certain, for nothing can be plainer than that
the Mutiny of 1857 was an outbreak of a martial
Mohammedan population crushed under an intolera-
ble pressure.
The locality of the disturbance alone is enough to
demonstrate the accuracy of this inference. Dal-
housie’s last act was the annexation of the Kingdom
of Oude. Of this province Lucknow is the capital,
and while Lucknow was one focus of the insurrection,
Delhi, the capital of the ancient Mogul empire, was
the other. Once subdued by the British, and reduced
to an economic equality with subtler races, the old
Moslem gentry rapidly disappeared. Since 1857 these
families, which had maintained themselves for six or
seven hundred years, have rapidly fallen into ruin,
and their estates have been bought by their credi-
tors, the rising usurer class.
Under immemorial native custom the money-lender,
generally speaking, had no forcible means of collect-
ing debt ; he relied on public opinion and conducted
himself accordingly. On the other hand, unrestricted
alienation of land was not usually incidental to pro-
prietorship, and thus the tenant for life, as ,he would
be called in English law, could only pledge his crops ;
he could not sell the succession. With centralization
CONCLUSION
357
XII.
came full ownership, and with it summary process for
debt. Following her immutable law, nature, having
changed the form of competition, proceeded to select
a quality of mind to correspond with the new condi-
tions of life She demanded improved vents for her
energy. Forthwith, under the pressure of accelerated
movement and advancing consolidation, the trammels
of caste relaxed, the population fused, and a new aris-
tocracy arose, composed of the strongest economic
types culled from all the peoples who inhabit the
plains south of the Himalayas This aristocracy is a
strange mixture of blood, an amalgam of the most
diverse elements, of Parsees, Brahmins, Bunniahs of
different races, with gifted individuals from other
castes, like the leather-workers or the goldsmiths;
but among them all the most ruthless, the corruptest,
the most hated, and the most successful, are the
Marwaris, who have been thus described by a British
commission : —
" The average Marwari money-lender is not a pleasant
character to analyze ; his most prominent characteristics
are love of gam and indifference to the opinions or feelings
of his neighbour. He has considerable self-reliance and
immense industry, but the nature of his business and the
method by which it is pursued would tend to degrade and
harden even a humane nature, which his is not. As a land-
lord he follows the instincts of the usurer, making the hardest
terms possible with his tenant, who is also his debtor and
often little better than his slave.” 1
The effect of the selection of such a type as a
dominant class must be destructive to a martial popula*
1 Report of the Commission appointed tn India to enquire into the
Causes of the Riots whuh took place m the year 1875 y in the Poona
and Ahmednagar Districts of the Bombay Presidency t 12.
358
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
tion, whether it be French or English, Mohammedan
or Hindoo. The social revolution which swept over
Oude after its annexation has been referred to, but
the fate which overtook the famous Mahratta nation
is even more tragic and impressive.
When, toward the close of the last century, the
British were pushing their conquests inland, the most
formidable enemy they met were the Mahrattas ; and,
perhaps, the most renowned battle, next to Plassey,
ever fought by Europeans against natives, was Assaye,
where Wellesley defeated Sindhia in 1803. These
Mahrattas were tribes of Hindoo farmers, who inhab-
ited the mountainous country about one hundred
miles to the east of Bombay; a territory of which
Poona has always been considered the capital
Mounted on their hill ponies, these bold and hardy
spearmen were always ready to follow their chiefs to
battle, and, in the eighteenth century, became the
terror not only of the Mohammedans of the Deccan,
but of the Mogul himself, at Delhi Even the Eng-
lish respected and feared them, and only subdued
them in 1818 after desperate fighting. Then they
were disarmed and subjected to the combined action
of peace and English law.
Soon after this conquest an inflow of Marwaris
began. As early as 1854, in Dalhousie’s administra-
tion, Captain Anderson stated that “ two-thirds of
the ryots [were] in the hands of the Marwaris, and
that the average debt of each individual [was] not
less than Rs. 100/' 1 Competition continued un-
1 Report of the Commission appointed in India to enquire into the
Causes of the Riots which took place m the year in the Poona and
Ahmednagar Districts of the Bombay Presidency \ 159,
XII.
CONCLUSION
359
checked as time flowed on, and in 1875 disturbances
broke out m certain villages near Poona, serious
enough to cause the government to appoint a com-
mission of inquiry After full investigation this
commission reported that up to 1872 or 1873 the
peasantry had seemed relatively prosperous, but that
afterward “prices fell quickly,” and that this fall
had been accompanied by a rise in taxation of some-
what more than fifty per cent. 1 Under this double
pressure the peasantry had rapidly sunk into insol-
vency, and the whole real estate of the Deccan was
passing into the hands of usurers, while the farmers
had become serfs toiling on the soil they had once
owned, to satisfy an inextinguishable debt. Precisely
like the colonus , the delinquent was not evicted, but
remained, “recorded as occupier of his holding, and
responsible for the payment of revenue assessed on
it, but virtually reduced by pressure of debt to a
tenant-at-will, . . . sweated by his Marwari creditor.
It is in that creditor’s power to eject him any day;
. . and if allowed to hold on, it is only on condition
of paying over to his creditor all the produce of his
land not absolutely necessary for next year’s seed
grain or for the support of life. He is indebted on
an average to the extent of sixteen or seventeen
years* payment of the government revenue. He has
nothing to hope for, but lives in daily fear of the
final catastrophe/’ 2
Since Assaye three generations have passed away,
and the Mahratta spearmen have vanished. The
Western Ghats are now tilled by a sluggish race
whom the British officers deem unworthy of their
1 Report of the Commission^ etc ,, 25, 26. 2 I&id., 167.
360 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP.
cavalry, and in the place of those renowned and
daring chiefs Sivaji and Holkar, stands the Marwari
under whom no ryots can prosper save those “ who
having received some education are able to combat
the sowkars with their own weapons, fraud, chicanery,
and even forgery /’ 1 Apparently the same destiny
awaits every people which requires more than the
minimum of nutriment, or which is not gifted with
the economic mind , 2 for the “ money-lenders sweep
off the crops as soon as harvested, only leaving with
the ryots barely sufficient to eke out a subsistence till
the following year ,” 3 That allowance, in the Dec-
can, is estimated at about a dollar a month in silver
— too little to sustain any but the most tenacious
organisms, even among Asiatics. Consequently,
though the population of India is increasing rap-
idly, the increase lies chiefly among the aboriginal
tribes who form the lowest castes, or in other words
among the non-martial or servile races. Men* who,
though enslaved by the Aryan invaders of prehis-
toric times, and who have always been subjected
to extremist hardship, have been gifted, like the
Egyptian fellah, with an endurance which has en-
abled them to survive . 4
Herein, likewise, may be plainly perceived the
destructive effects of the policy of the Western
usurers upon the population subject to them. By
enhancing the value of their own money they have
nearly doubled the intensity of this Asiatic competi-
1 Report of the Commission , etc,, 168.
4 See Musalmam and Money-lenders tn the Punjab^ Thorburn.
8 Report of the Commission » etc,, 168.
* See Brief History of the Indian Peoples ? Hunter, 50.
XII.
CONCLUSION
361
tion. In India, silver has substantially retained its
purchasing power, therefore the ryot now, as in the
days of Captain Cunningham, can exist on two rupees
a month, but he cannot live on less. Accordingly, the
severity of his competition with Europeans must be
measured by the value of his wages when reckoned on
the European scale In 1854 the ryot’s two rupees
were worth one dollar; now, through the apprecia-
tion of gold, they are worth about sixty cents, and
the effect is the same as though the tenacity of life
of the Asiatic had been increased four-sixths. Every-
thing the Indian or Chinese peasant produces with
his hands, whether on the farm or in the factory, has
been reduced in price, in relation to Western peoples,
in the ratio of six to ten.
The cheapest form of labour is thus being bred on
a gigantic scale, and this labour is being accelerated
by an industrial development which is stimulated by
eviction of the farmers, as the “industrial revolu-
tion ” was stimulated in England one hundred and
thirty years ago. For many .years the cotton mills
of Bombay have undersold Lancashire in the coarser
fabrics, and when, by means of a canal to the Pacific,
American cotton can be imported cheaply, they will
spin the finer also. Moreover, Hindostan is full of
iron and coal which has never been utilized because
of the immense difference in the rapidity of Euro-
pean and Asiatic labour, but the steadily falling range
of Western prices must force the cheapest product
on the market, and when the Indian railways have
been assumed by the government, a new era will
have opened. The same causes are affecting China
and Japan, and, under precisely similar conditions,
362 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP.
the centre of exchanges passed from the Tiber to the
Bosphorus sixteen hundred years ago.
Such uniformity of development in the most distant
times, and among the most divergent peoples, points
to a progressive law of civilization, each stage of prog-
ress being marked by certain intellectual, moral,
and physical changes. As the attack in war masters
the defence, and the combative instinct becomes un-
necessary to the preservation of life, the economic
supersedes the martial mind, being superior in bread-
wmmng As velocity augments and competition
intensifies, nature begins to sift the economic minds
themselves, culling a favoured aristocracy of the craf-
tiest and the subtlest types; choosing, for example,
the Armenian in Byzantium, the Marwari in India,
and the Jew in London. Conversely, as the costly
nervous system of the soldier becomes an encum-
brance, organisms, which can exist on less, suc-
cessively supplant each other, until the limit of
endurance is reached. Thus the Slavs exterminated
the Greeks in Thrace and Macedonia, the Mahrattas
and the Moslems dwindle before the low caste tribes
of India, and the instinct of self-preservation has
taught white races to resist an influx of Chinese.
When nature has finished this double task, civiliza-
tion has reached its zenith. Humanity can ascend
no higher.
In view of this possible extermination of the mar-
tial blood in the higher stages of civilization, the
attention necessarily becomes concentrated on what
is, perhaps, the main point of divergence between
ancient and modern society, — the presence and the
absence of a supply of barbaric life. All the evidence
XII.
CONCLUSION
363
points to the conclusion that the infusion of vitality
which Rome ever drew from territories beyond her
borders, was the cause both of her strength and of
her longevity. Without such aid she could never
have consolidated the world. On the other hand,
the lack of this resource has been the weakness
of modern nations. One after another they have
dreamed of universal conquest, and one after another
they have fallen through exhaustion m war.
Spain levied never a pikeman in America, and her
colonies were a source of debility in so far as they
drained her of her youth. Had Rome been similarly
situated, she could hardly have carried the eagles
beyond the Bosphorus and the Alps. Perhaps
Caesar’s army was the best an ancient general ever
put in the field, and yet it was filled with barbarians.
All his legions were raised north of the Po, and most
of them, including the tenth, north of the Alps . 1
When pitted against this force native Italians broke
in rout, and one of the most striking pages of
Plutarch is the story of the gradual awakening of
Pompey to a sense of the impotence of Romans.
Pompey himself was a commander of high ability,
and, until he split upon the rock of the pure martial
blood, battle had been with him synonymous with
victory.
At first he felt such confidence, he laughed at
the suggestion of an attack within the Rubicon.
With the conviction of the conqueror he said:
“ Whenever I stamp with my foot in any part of Italy,
there will rise up forces enough m an instant, both
1 See History of the Romans , ed. of 1852, Merivale, ii. 81, where the
authorities are collected.
3^4
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
horse and foot ” 1 A very short experience of the
men of the north sufficed to sober him ; for, though
Caesar’s command amounted to only twenty-two
thousand, and his to twice as many, he not only
declined an action, but took what care he could to
keep the threats of the Gauls from his men, “who
were out of heart and despondent, through terror at
the fierceness and hardiness of their enemies, whom
they looked upon as a sort of wild beasts /' 2 Phar-
salia stunned him. When the tenth legion routed
his left wing, he went to his tent and sat speechless
until the invasion of the camp , then he walked
away u softly afoot, taken up altogether with thoughts
such as probably might possess a man that for the
space of thirty-four years together had been accus-
tomed to conquest and victory, and was then at last,
in his old age, learning for the first time what defeat
and flight were /' 3
Thus, in reality, barbarians consolidated the ancient
world, and the force which created the Empire, after-
ward upheld it With each succeeding century the
drafts of centralized society upon the blood of the coun-
try beyond the Danube and the Rhine increased, but
the supply proved limitless ; and, when the Western
provinces disintegrated, a new imaginative race poured
over Italy and France, creating a new religion, a new
art, a new literature, and new institutions. Among
modern nations the Russians alone have developed
this power of absorbing kindred conquered peoples ;
and yet, obviously, Napoleon would have fought hi t s
campaigns under very different circumstances, and,
1 Plutarch’s Lives* Clough’s trans., iv. 123.
* Ibid.* 298. * Bid., 142.
xn. CONCLUSION 365
perhaps, brought them to a different end, had he, like
Caesar, had an exhaustless supply of the best soldiers,
altogether independent of the population of France.
Religious phenomena become explicable when
viewed from the same standpoint. Unquestionably
scepticism has been to the full as rife in Paris since
1789 as it ever was in Rome, and yet no new religion
has been born. Supposing, however, that a vast and
highly emotional emigration flowed annually into
France, the aspect of life would be completely changed.
Christian saints and martyrs were not begotten by
the usurers of Constantinople or of Rome, but by
barbarian soldiers and Asiatic serfs, and Christianity
could hardly have become a State religion had the
composition of society, as it existed under Trajan,
remained unaltered. Even in the reign of Justinian
the aristocracy carped at faith, and Byzantine archi-
tecture did not bloom until the invasions of Alaric
and Attila.
If, then, although nature never precisely repeats
herself, she operates upon the human mind according
to immutable laws, it should be possible by comparing
a living civilization with a dead, to estimate in some
degree the course which has been run. For such an
attempt an infinite variety of standards might be sug-
gested, but few, perhaps, are more suitable than the
domestic relations which lie at the basis of the repro-
duction of life.
In a martial and imaginative age, where energy
vents itself through fear, and every man must be a
soldier, the family generally forms a unit ; the women
and children being under the control of the father, as
they were under the control of the patriarchs in the
366
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
Bible, or of the paterfamilias in Rome In such
periods the woman is sought after by the man, and
even commands a high money value ; “ And Shechem
said unto her father, . Ask me never so much
dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall
say unto me : but give me the damsel to wife .” 1 The
Homeric heroes bought their wives, and, moreover,
were very fond of them — an affection the women
returned, for in all classical literature there are few
more charming legends than that of Penelope* Di-
vorce was unknown to Hector and Agamemnon,
Ulysses and Achilles. Marriage, in these simple
ages, is usually a rite half sacred, half warlike. When
Abraham’s servant found Rebekah at the well, he
bowed his head, and blessed the Lord God of his
master Abraham, which had led him in the right
way. A Roman wedding was a solemn religious
function accompanied by prayer and sacrifice, and, at
the end, the bride was carried to her husband’s house,
where she was violently torn from her mother’s arms.
Aristotle, with his unerring acumen, made this
observation : “ That all yrarlike races are prone to
the love of women/’ and also that they tend to “fall
under the dominion of their wives ” 2 Undoubtedly
this is the instinct of the soldier, and, in martial ages,
women are idealized. When a foreigner asked the
wife of Leonidas, “ Why do you Lacedaemonian wives,
unlike all others, govern your husbands ?” the Spartan
answered, “Because we alone are the mothers of men.”
When at Rome Tiberius killed the male serpent,
thereby devoting himself to death to save Cornelia,
Plutarch, telling the story, remarked, “ that Tiberius
* Genesis xxxiv. n, 12. 2 Aristotle, PoL> ii. 9.
XII. CONCLUSION 367
seemed to all men to have done nothing unreasona*
ble, in choosing to die for such a woman ; who, when
King Ptolemy himself proffered her his crown, and
would have married her, refused it, and chose rather
to live a widow .” 1
In the Middle Ages, that greatest of martial and
imaginative epochs, marriage developed into the
most solemn of sacraments, and the worship of
women became the popular religion. In France, es-
pecially, the centre of thought, enthusiasm, and war,
from the mighty fane of Paris downward, the churches
were dedicated to Mary, and the vow of chivalry bound
the knight to fight for God and for his lady.
“ It hath bene through all ages ever seene
That with the praise of armes and chevalrie
The pnze of beautie still hath loyned beene.” 2
It might almost be said that the destinies of France
have been moulded by men’s love for women, and
that this influence still prevailed down to the advent
of the usurers after the rout of Waterloo. On the
other hand, nature bred a type of woman fit to mate
with the imaginative man The devotion of Saint
Clara to Saint Francis is one of the most exquisite
lyrics of the Church, and for six hundred years
Helofse remained an ideal of the West. Perhaps,
indeed, that strange blending of tenderness and en-
thusiasm, which was peculiar to the mediaeval mind,
never found more refined and exalted expression
than in the simple hymn which Helofse is said to
have composed and sung at the grave of Abdlard: —
* Plutarch’s Lives , Clough’s trans., iv. 507.
2 Faery Queene f Spenser, iv. 5, 1.
368
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
“ Tecum fata sum perpessa;
Tecum dormiam defessa,
Et m Sion veniam.
Solve crucem,
Due ad lucem
Degravatam animam.”
In primitive ages children are not only a source
of power, but of wealth, and therefore the highest
merit of the woman is fecundity. “And they
blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, ... be thou
the mother of thousands of millions ” Also mater-
nity is then a glory, and childlessness a shame ; and
Rachel said, “ Give me children, or else I die.” “ And
she conceived and bare a son ; and said, God hath
taken away my reproach.” That she might live for
her boys, Cornelia refused a crown ; and when they
grew up, she would upbraid them because “the
Romans as yet rather called her the daughter of
Scipio than the mother of the Gracchi.” But Cor-
nelia’s father was the conqueror of Hannibal, and
her son was an agrarian agitator, whom the monied
oligarchy murdered for reviving the Licinian Laws.
Apparently, one of the first signs of advancing
civilization is the fall in the value of women in
men’s eyes. Not very long after the siege of Troy,
husbands must have ceased paying for their wives ;
for, at a comparatively early date, they demanded
a price for wedding them. Euripides, born in
480 B.c., made Medea complain that women had to
buy their husbands for great sums of money. In
other words, the custom of the wedding portion had
come to prevail.
As the pressure of economic competition inten*
XII.
CONCLUSION
369
sifies with social consolidation, the family regularly
disintegrates, the children rejecting the parental
authority at a steadily decreasing age , until, finally,
the population fuses into a compact mass, in which
all individuals are equal before the law, and all are
forced to compete with each other for the means of
subsistence. When at length wealth has accumu-
lated sufficiently to find vent through capitalistic
methods of farming and manufacture, children lose
all value, for then hiring labour is always cheaper
than breeding. Thenceforward, among the more
extravagant races, the family dwindles, as in ancient
Rome or modern France, and marriage, having be-
come a luxury, decreases. Moreover, the economic
instinct impels parents to reduce the number of pos-
sible inheritors of their property, that its bulk may
not shrink.
* Upon women the effect of these changed condi-
tions is prodigious. Their whole relation to society
is altered. From a religious sacrament marriage is
metamorphosed into a civil contract, dissoluble, like
other contracts, by mutual consent ; and, as the obli-
gations of maternity diminish, the relation of hus
band and wife resolves itself into a sort of business
partnership, tending always* to become more ephem
eral Frequent as divorce now is, it was even more
so under the Antonines.
On men the action of natural selection is, at least,
as drastic. The change wrought in Roman character
in about three hundred years has always been one of
the problems of history. In the words of Aristotle,
the primitive Roman “was prone to the love of
women/" Strong m his passions, austere in his life,
37 °
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHA?
fierce in his jealousy, he set the undisputed possession
of the female as his supreme happiness. Virginius
slew his daughter to keep her from Appius Claudius,
and his comrades in the legions washed out his
wrong in the Decemvir’s blood; while among the
stirring ballads of the fabled time which were sung
at the farmer’s fireside, none roused such emotion as
the tale of the vengeance wreaked on Tarquin for
Lucretia’s death. Compare this virile race with the
aristocracy of the middle Empire. By the second
century female purity weighed light against money.
Marcus Aurelius is said to have condensed the whole
economic moial code in one short sentence. His
wife, Faustina, was accused, by scandal, of being the
most abandoned woman of her generation, more noto-
rious even than had been Messalina. When the
philosopher was urged to repudiate her, he replied,
“Then I should have to surrender her portion”
(the Empire) , and he not only lived with her, but
built a temple to her memory. Even if the story be
false, it reflects none the less truly the temper of the
age.
The minds of noble Romans of the third and fourth
centuries, under the same impulsion, worked differ-
ently from those of their primitive ancestors; they
lacked the martial and the amatory instincts. As a
general rule one salient characteristic of the later
reigns was a sexual lassitude yielding only to the
most potent stimulants. The same phenomena were
noticed among Frenchmen at the collapse of the
Empire, since when like symptoms have become
notorious in London.
Taking history as a whole, women seem never to
XII.
CONCLUSION
371
have more than moderately appealed to the senses
of the economic man. The monied magnate seldom
ruins himself for love, and chivalry would have been
as foreign to a Roman senator under Diocletian, as
it would be now to a Lombard Street banker. On
the other hand, m proportion as women’s influence
has declined when measured by their power over
men, it has increased when measured by the eco-
nomic standard. In many ways the female seems to
serve as a vent for the energy of capital almost as
well as men , in the higher planes of civilization they
hold their property in severalty, and, by means of
money, wield a power not unlike Faustina’s If
unmarried, the economic woman competes with the
man on nearly equal terms, and everywhere, and in
all ages, the result is not dissimilar The stronger
and more fortunate members of the sex have groWn
rich and have bought social and political power.
Roman politics under Septimius Severus and Cara-
calla was much in the hands of women, and Julia
Maesa, who was enormously wealthy, carried through
a most famous intrigue by purchasing the throne for
Elagabalus.
In Rome, however, there was always a strong ad-
mixture of barbaric blood, and, to the last, the bar-
barians married for love. Justinian was an example.
Born of an obscure race of barbarians in the desolate
Bulgarian country, he fell uncontrollably in love with
Theodora, who had scandalized even the theatres of
Constantinople His mother died of shame; but Jus-
tinian persevered, and, while she lived, his devotion
to his wife never wavered.
In Rome and in Byzantium such women were the
372
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
stronger or the more fortunate; their counteiparts
are easily to be found in any economic age. The
fate of the weaker there was slavery , now they are
forced by competition into the ranks of the cheapest
labour, — a lot, perhaps, hardly preferable.
And yet art, perhaps, even more clearly than re-
ligion, love, or war, indicates the pathway of consoli-
dation , for art reflects with the subtlest delicacy those
changes in the forms of competition which enfeeble
or inflame the imagination. Of Greek art, in its
zenith, little need be said ; its great qualities have been
too fully recognized. It suffices to point out that it
was absolutely honest, and that it formed a vehicle
of expression as flexible as the language itself. A
temple apparently of marble, was of marble ; a col-
onnade apparently supporting a portico, did support
it', and, while the ornament formed an integral part
of the structure, the people read it as intelligently as
they read the poems of Homer. Nothing similar
ever flourished in Rome.
Unlike the Greeks, the Romans were never sensi-
tive or imaginative. Properly speaking, they had
nothing which they could express through art ; they
were utilitarian from the outset, and their architecture
finally took shape in the most perfect system of ma-
terialistic building which, probably, has ever existed.
Obviously such a system could only be matured in a
capitalistic society, and, accordingly, Roman archi-
tecture only reached perfection somewhat late, per-
haps, toward the close of the first century.
The Romans, though vulgar and ostentatious, un-
derstood business. They knew how to combine
economy and even solidity with display. As Viollet-
CONCLUSION
373
m
le-Duc has observed, “They were rich, and they wanted
to appear so ,” 1 but they strove to attain their end
without waste. Therefore they first ran up a cheap
core of rubble, bricks, and mortar, which could be
put together by rude slave labour under the direc-
tion of an engineer and a few overseers; and their
squalid interior they afterward veneered with marble,
adding, by way of ornament, tier above tier of Greek
columns ranged against the walls That gaudy exte-
rior had nothing whatever to do with the building
itself, and could be stripped off without vital injury.
From the Greek standpoint nothing could be falser,
more insulting to the intelligence, or, in a word, more
plutocratic, but the work was sound and durable,
and, to a certain degree, imposing from its mass.
This system lasted, substantially unimpaired, even to
Constantine or until the final migration of capital
to the Bosphorus, the only difference between the
monuments of the fourth century and the first being
that the former are somewhat coarser, just as the
coins of Diocletian are coarser than those of Nero.
Yet, although the monied aristocracy remained
supreme down to the final disintegration of the
West, emigration began very early to modify the
base of society, by the injection of a considerable
amount of imaginative blood ; and, as early as the
reign of Claudius, this new store of energy made its
presence felt through the outlet of Christianity. The
converts were, of course, the antipodes of the ruling
class. They were “ humiliores,” poor people, below
the notice of a rich man like Tacitus; “quos, .
vulgus Christianos appellabat.” 2
1 Entreticns sun t Architecture, i. 102. 2 Ann., xv. 44,
374
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
our.
These Christians held a position analogous to
that of Nihilists now, whom they resembled save
in respect to violence They were socialists living
under a monied despotism, and they openly prayed
for the end of the world ; therefore they were
thought “ haters of the human race ,” 1 and they
suffered the penalty. Primitive Christianity was
incompatible with the existence of Roman society,
against which it was a protest, for it “ fully accepted
the idea that the rich, if he did not surrender his
superfluity, kept what belonged to another .” 2 By
right the Kingdom of Heaven was closed to the
wealthy.
Probably very few of these eaily Christians were
Italians ; most of them were from the Levant, and
that they were intensely emotional is proved by their
lust for martyrdom — they voluntarily sought death
as a means of glorifying God. One day Arrius Anto-
ninus, proconsul of Asia, having ordered certain Chris-
tians arrested, saw all the faithful of the town present
themselves before his tribunal, demanding to share
the fate of those chosen for martyrdom. He dis-
missed them in wrath, telling them that if they were
so in love with death they might commit suicide ; 3
and Renan’s account of the persecutions under Nero
shows an incredible exaltation . 4
Almost at once the effect of this emotional temper-
ament became perceptible. The paintings in the
catacombs are, perhaps, the oldest example of Chris-
tian art, and of these M. Vitet thus spoke many years
ago ; —
1 Ann., xv. 44. 8 Tertulliaa, Ad Scapulam, 5.
9 Marc-Aurile , Renan, 600. 4 VAntecknst, 163 et seq.
XII. CONCLUSION 375
“ These decorations, made with the hand raised, in secret,
hurriedly, and more for pious reasons than for love of the
beautiful, nevertheless reveal to the most rebellious eyes
and m spite of strange negligence and incorrectness, I know
not what of animation, of youth, of fecundity, and, so to
speak, a real transformation of that very art which, in the
service of paganism, seemed then, we are all agreed, dying
of exhaustion.” 1
As the world disintegrated, and the imagination
everywhere acquired power, and with power wealth
and the means of expression, an entirely new archi-
tecture sprang up in the East, whose growth closely
followed upon the barbarian invasions and the pro-
gressive failure of the Roman blood The system of
construction was Asiatic modified by Greek influ-
ences, 2 and with this new construction came an equally
new decoration, a decoration which once more served
as a language.
Mosaics of stone had long been used, but mosaics
of glass, which give such an incomparable lustre to
the dome, were the invention of Levantine Christians,
and seem to have come into general use toward the
beginning of the fifth century But the fifth century
was the period of the great invasions of Alaric, Attila,
and Theoderic, and during this period the population
of Italy, Macedonia, and Thrace must have undergone
profound changes In Italy the whole fabric of con-
solidated society crumbled , south of the Danube it
survived, but survived in a modified form, a form on
which the recent migrations left an unmistakable im-
print. Galla Placidia, the first great patron of the
1 Atades j \ur P Hutch e de l’ Art, Vitet, i, 200,
51 VArt de Batir dies Us Byzantins, Choisy, 5, 6.
CONCLUSION
377
XIL
needful for such functions as those depicted in San
Vitale, and the account given by Procopius of its
erection sustains this supposition According to
Procopius, Saint Sophia was a hobby of Justinian,
who not only selected the architect Anthemius be-
cause he was the most ingenious mechanic of his age,
but who also supplied the funds and “assisted it by
the labour and powers of his mind ” 1 The dome,
“from the# lightness of the building . . . does not
appear to rest upon a solid foundation, but to cover
the place beneath as though it were suspended from
heaven by the fabled golden chain ” ; and the interior
“is singularly full of light and of sunshine; you
would declare that the place is not lighted by the
sun from without, but that the rays are produced
within itself, such an abundance of light is poured
into this church ” 2 Of the decorations it is impossi-
ble to speak with certainty, since it is probable that
the mosaics which now exist weie of a later period.
Perhaps, however, the most significant phenome-
non about the church is its loneliness; nothing like
it was built elsewhere, and the reason seems plain,
There was but one imperial court which needed so
superb a setting, and but one emperor who could pay
for it. Herein lies the radical divergence between
the East and West ; the great tabernacle of Constan-
tinople stood alone because it represented the wealth,
the pomp, and the imagination of the barbarian shep-
herd who had been raised by fortune to be the chief
of police of the city where the world's wealth had
centralized. In France every diocese had a temple
magnificent according to its means, some of which
1 Buildings of Ju$ti?nan i Procopius, trans# by Stewart, i. I. 2 Ibid.
CONCLUSION
3/7
XII.
needful for such functions as those depicted in San
Vitale, and the account given by Procopius of its
erection sustains this supposition According to
Procopius, Saint Sophia was a hobby of Justinian,
who not only selected the architect Anthemius be-
cause he was the most ingenious mechanic of his age,
but who also supplied the funds and “ assisted it by
the labour and powers of his mind ” 1 The dome,
“from the. lightness of the building . . . does not
appear to rest upon a solid foundation, but to cover
the place beneath as though it were suspended from
heaven by the fabled golden chain”; and the interior
“is singularly full of light and of sunshine; you
would declare that the place is not lighted by the
sun from without, but that the rays are produced
within itself, such an abundance of light is poured
into this church.” 2 Of the decorations it is impossi-
ble to speak with certainty, since it is probable that
the mosaics which now exist were of a later period.
Perhaps, however, the most significant phenome-
non about the church is its loneliness; nothing like
it was built elsewhere, and the reason seems plain.
There was but one imperial court which needed so
superb a setting, and but one emperor who could pay
for it. Herein lies the radical divergence between
the East and West , the great tabernacle of Constan-
tinople stood alone because it represented the wealth,
the pomp, and the imagination of the barbarian shep-
herd who had been raised by fortune to be the chief
of police of the city where the world's wealth had
centralized. In France every diocese had a temple
magnificent according to its means, some of which
1 Buildings of Justinian^ Procopius, trans. by Stewart,!. I. 2 Ibid.
378
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAr
exceeded in majesty that of Paris; and the cause
was that, in France, the artistic and imaginative caste
formed a theocracy, who were not hired by king or
emperor, but who were themselves the strongest
force in all the land. In the East, the imaginative
inroad was not strong enough to cause disintegration,
and the artists always remained wage-earners. In
the West, society fell back a thousand years, and
consolidation began afresh Six centuries intervened
between the death of Galla Placidia and the famous
dream of the monk Gauzon which contained the rev-
elation of the plan of the Abbey of Cluny, and yet
six hundred years by no means represented the gap
between the Franks and the Burgundians, and the
Eastern Empire, even when it sank lowest under
Heraclius. To Justinian the building of Saint Soplna
was a matter of time and money , to Saint Hugh the
church of Cluny was a miracle.
In France the churches long were miracles; the
chronicles are filled with the revelations vouchsafed
the monks ; and none can cross the threshold of one
of these noble monuments and fail to grasp its mean-
ing. They are the most vigorous of all expressions
of fear of the unseen. The Gothic architect heeded
no living potentate ; he held kings in contempt, and
oftener represented them thrust down into hell than
seated on their thrones. With the enemy who lurked
in darkness none but the saints could cope, and them
he idealized. No sculpture is more terrible than the
demons on the walls of Rheims, none more majestic
and pathetic than that over the door of the Virgin at
Paris, while no colour ever equalled the windows of
Saint Denis and Chartres.
XII.
CONCLUSION
379
With the thirteenth century came the influx of the
Eastern trade and the rise of the communes. Imme-
diately the glory of the Gothic began to fade; by the
reign of Saint Louis it had passed its prime, arid
under Philip the Fair it fell in full decline. The
men who put dead cats in shrines were not likely to
be inspired in religious sculpture. The decay, and
the reasons for it, can be readily traced in colour.
The monks who conceived the twelfth century
windows, or painted the pictures of the saints, only
sought to render an emotion by a conventional sym-
bol which should rouse a response. Consequently
they used marvellous combinations of colours, in
which blue was apt to predominate, and they har-
monized their colours with gold. Viollet-le-Duc has
elaborately explained how this was done 1 But such
a system was not pretentious, and was incompatible
with perspective. The mediaeval burgher, like the
Roman, was rich, and wanted to appear so. He de-
manded more for his money than a solemn portrait
of a saint He craved a picture of himself, or of his
guild, and above all he insisted on display. The four-
teenth century was the period when the reds and yel-
lows superseded the blues, and when the sense of
harmony began to fail. Furthermore, the burgher
was realistic and required a representation of the
world he saw about him. Hence came perspective,
the abandonment of gold, and the final degradation
of colour, which sank into a lost art For hundreds
of years it has been impossible to imitate the work of
the monks of Saint Denis. In Italy, the economic
phenomena were yet more striking ; for Italy, even
1 JDicUonnaire de P Architecture, Art. “ Peinture.”
380
CIVILIZATION AND DECAY
CHAP.
in the Middle Ages, was always a commercial com-
munity, which looked on art with the economic eye.
One example will suffice, — the treatment of the
dome.
Placed between the masterpieces of the East and
West, and having little imagination of his own, the
Florentine banker conceived the idea of combining
the two systems and embellishing them m a cheap
and showy manner. Accordingly on Gothic arches
he placed an Eastern dome, and instead of adorning
his dome with mosaics, which are costly, he had his
interior painted at about one-quarter of the price.
The substitution of the fresco for the mosaic is one
of the most typical devices of modern times.
Before the opening of the economic age, when the
imagination glowed with all the passion of religious
enthusiasm, the monks who built the abbeys of Cluny
and Saint Denis took no thought of money, for it
regarded them not. Sheltered by their convents,
their livelihood was assured ; their bread and their
robe were safe; they pandered to no market, for
they cared for no patron. Their art was not a chat-
tel to be bought, but an inspired language in which
they communed with God, or taught the people, and
they expressed a poetry in the stones they carved
which far transcended words. For these reasons
Gothic architecture, in its prime, was spontaneous,
elevated, dignified, and pure.
The advent of portraiture has usually been con-
sidered to portend decay, and rightly, since the pres-
ence of the portrait demonstrates the supremacy of
wealth. A portrait can hardly be the ideal of an
enthusiast, like the figure of a god, for it is a com-
XII.
CONCLUSION
381
mercial article, sold for a price, and manufactured to
suit a patron’s taste ; were it made to please the
artist, it might not find a buyer When portraits
are fashionable, the economic period must be well
advanced. Portraiture, like other economic phe-
nomena, blossomed during the Renaissance, and it
was then also that the artist, no longer shielded by
his convent or his guild, stood out to earn his living
by the sale of his wares, like the Venetian merchants
whom he met on the Rialto, whose vanity he flat-
tered, and whose palaces he adorned. From the six-
teenth century downward, the man of imagination,
unable to please the economic taste, has starved.
This mercenary quality forms the gulf which has
divided the art of the Middle Ages from that of
modern times — a gulf which cannot be bridged, and
which has broadened with the lapse of centuries,
until at last the artist, like all else in society, has
become the creature of a commercial market, even
as the Greek was sold as a slave to the plutocrat
of Rome. With each invention, with each accelera-
tion of movement, prose has more completely sup-
planted poetry, while the economic intellect has
grown less tolerant of any departure from those
representations of nature which have appealed to
the most highly gifted of the monied type among
successive generations. Hence the imperiousness
of modern realism.
Thus the history of art coincides with the history
of all other phenomena of life, for experience has
demonstrated that, since the Reformation, a school
of architecture, like the Greek or Gothic, has become
impossible. No such school could exist in a society
382 CIVILIZATION AND DECAY CHAP.
where the imagination had decayed, for the Greek
and Gothic represented imaginative ideals. In an
economic period, like that which has followed the
Reformation, wealth is the form in which energy
seeks expression , therefore, since the close of the
fifteenth century, architecture has reflected money.
Viollet-le-Duc has said of the Romans, that, like
all parvenus, the true expression of art lay, for them,
rather in lavish ornament than in purity of form , 1
and what was true of the third century is true of
the nineteenth. The type of mind being the same,
its operation must be similar, and the economic, at
once ostentatious and parsimonious, produces a cheap
core fantastically adorned. The Romans perched the
travesty of a Gi ecian colonnade upon the summit of a
bath or an amphitheatre, while the Englishman, hav-
ing pillaged weaker nations of their imaginative gems,
delights to cover with coarse imitations the exterior
of banks and counting houses.
And yet, though thus alike, a profound difference
separates Roman architecture from our own; the
Romans were never wholly sordid, nor did they ever
niggle. When they built a wall, that wall was solid
masonry, not painted iron ; and, even down to Con-
stantine, one chord remained which, when struck,
would always vibrate. Usurers may have sat in the
Senate, but barbarians filled the legions, and, as long
as the triumph wound its way through the Forum,
men knew how to raise triumphal arches to the victor.
Perhaps, in all the ages, no more serious or majestic
monument has been conceived to commemorate the
soldier than the column of Trajan, a monument
1 £ntretiens, i. 102.
Xir. CONCLUSION 383
which it has been the ambition of our century to
copy.
In Paris an imitation of this trophy was erected to
the greatest captain of France, and the column of
the Place Vend6me serves to mark the grave of the
modern martial blood Raised in 1810, almost at
the moment when Nathan Rothschild became despot
of the London Stock Exchange, the tide from thence
ran swiftly, and, since Sedan, the present generation
has drained to the lees the cup of realism.
No poetry can bloom in the and modern soil, the
drama has died, and the patrons of art are no longer
even conscious of shame at profaning the most sacred
of ideals. The ecstatic dream, which some twelfth-
century monk cut into the stones of the sanctuary
halloaed by the presence of his God, is reproduced
to bedizen a warehouse; or the plan of an abbey,
which Saint Hugh may have consecrated, is adapted
to a railway station.
Decade by decade, for some four hundred years,
these phenomena have grown more sharply marked
in Europe, and, as consolidation apparently nears its
climax, art seems to presage approaching disinte-
gration. The architecture, the sculpture, and the
coinage of London at the close of the nineteenth
century, when compared with those of the Paris of
Saint Louis, recall the Rome of Caracalla as con-
trasted with the Athens of Pericles, save that we
lack the stream of barbarian blood which made the
Middle Age.
INDEX
Acre siege of 130, defence of by
Templars 171.
Alanc served m Roman army 61
Alexander, Emperor of Russia
breach with Napoleon 324
Alexis treats with crusaders 139,
death of 143*
Anastatius • wealth of 51 ; builds long
wall 51.
Anglicanism, see Church of Eng-
land.
Antwerp rise of 201 ; centre of ex-
changes 201 , sack of 287
Architecture , Italian 88 , Gothic 89 ,
Byzantine 89, Saracenic 90, cru-
sading 100, Greek and Roman
372; Byzantine 375 et seq ,
Gothic 378; modern 382, see
Ogive.
Armada, defeated by yeomen 256,
loss of 287.
Army, see Police,
Art: decline of 380,381, see Aichi-
tecture.
Articles, ecclesiastical * Six 232, 26S ,
Forty-two 362 ; Lambeth 268
Attila ransoms Constantinople 50,
vision of 63
Aureus: depreciation of 27; passes
by weight 31.
Baldwin, Count of Edessa • 105 , King
of Jerusalem 105
Baldwin, Emperor of the East 146 ,
reproved by Innocent 147.
Bank of England : incorporated 303 ;
early issues of 319 , suspends cash
payments 327; policv of prior to
1810 327: resumes specie pnv-
2 C
ments 330, hoards gold 331-333;
paper xn panic of 1825 335 , Bank
Act of 1844 336, suspension of
Bank Act 344.
Bank of Genoa. 168.
Bank of Venice 168, 169.
Bankers mediaeval 168, increase of
English country after 1760 319;
poor credit of 320 ; increase issues
m 1823 333 , rise of great modem
houses 321, policy of 328; su-
piemacy ot 344, absolute govern-
ment by 353.
Barbarians imported by Roman
emperors 39; lack of m modern
times 363 , formed strength of Ro-
man armies 363 , want of weakness
m modern civilization 364, see
Coloni.
Boadicea revolt of 37,
Boleyn, Anne" 212; sweating sick-
ness 226 , crowned 230.
Boleyn, Thomas * character and rise
of 213
Boniface VIII * character of 172;
quarrel with Philip 173; bulls of
174, 175, seized at Anagni 177,
Bosra * retreat from 119 ; miracle at
119, 120,
Boulton, Matthew rise of 314 , part-
nei ship with Watt 316 , debts of3i6.
Bullion Committee 328,329.
Burleigh, Lord rise of 213, hostile
to adventurers 256 , family of t\ pi-
ca! landlords 267.
Caesar * army of 363,
Capital: centres at Constantinople
28, Mill’s definition of 313; ae*
38s
INDEX
Acre siege of 130, defence of by
Templars 171.
Alanc served in Roman army 61.
Alexander, Emperor of Russia
breach with Napoleon 324
Alexis treats with crusaders 139,
death of 143.
Anastatius wealth of 51 , builds long
wall 51.
Anglicanism, see Church of Eng-
land.
Antwerp * nse of 201 , centre of ex-
changes 201 ; sack of 287
Architecture * Italian 88 , Gothic 89 ,
Byzantine 89; Saracenic 90, cru-
sading 100, Greek and Roman
372; Byzantine 375 et seq ,
Gothic 378 ; modern 382 , see
Ogive.
Aimada. defeated by yeomen 236,
loss of 287.
Army, see Police.
Art. decline of 380,381, see Aichi-
tectuie,
Articles, ecclesiastical , Six 232, 26 3 ,
Forty-two 262 ; Lambeth 268.
Attila ransoms Constantinople 50;
vision of 63.
Aureus, depreciation of 27, passes
by weight 31.
Baldwin, Count of Edessa 105 , King
of Jerusalem 105,
Baldwin, Emperor of the East' 146;
reproved by Innocent 147,
Bank of England : incorporated 303 ;
early issues of 3x9 ; suspends cash
payments 327; policy of prior to
x8io 327; resumes specie pay-
ments 330, hoards gold 331-333;
paper m panic of 1825 335 ; Bank
Act of 1844 336, suspension of
Bank Act 344.
Bank ot Genoa* x68.
Bank of Venice 168, 169.
Bankers mediaeval 168 , increase of
English country after 1760 319;
poor credit of 320 ; increase issues
in 1823 333, nse of great modem
houses 321, policy of 328, su-
piemacy ot 344, absolute govern-
ment by 353.
Barbarians impoited by Roman
emperors 39, lack of m modem
times 363 , formed strength of Ro-
man armies 363 , want of weakness
m modem civilization 364; see
Colom.
Boadicea revolt of 37,
Boleyn, Anne 212; sweating sick-
ness 226 , crowned 230,
Boleyn, 1 homas : character and nse
of 213
Boniface VIII * character of 172;
quarrel with Philip 173, bulls of
174, X75 , seized at Anagnx 177.
Bosra * retreat from 1x9 ; mu acle at
1 19, 120.
Boulton, Matthew rise of 314 , part-
nei ship with Watt 316, debts of 316.
Bullion Committee • 328, 329.
Burleigh, Lord rise of 2x3 , hostile
to adventurers 256 , family of t\ pi-
cal landlords 267.
Caesar * army of 363.
Capital* centres at Constantinople
28; Mill's definition of 313; ae-
INDEX
386
celerates movement 314 ; accumu-
lates at London 329 ; see England
and London.
Caithusians: martyrdom of 221,
Cecil, see Burleigh.
Champagne: fairs of 158; centres of
Eastern trade 158 ; decline of aoi.
Chantries : confiscation of 259.
Child, Sir Josiah : rise of 294 ; esti-
mates England’s wealth 295.
Church, Catholic: see Early Chris-
tian; becomes dominant m Italy
63; secular character of mediaeval
clergy of 71 , secular clergy of 73 ;
claims of under Hildebrand 75;
makes papacy self-perpetuating 73 ;
emancipates itself Irom civil power
76, 77; schism of with Constant!-
nop.e 78; character of cleigv of at
Reformation 264, 205 ; miracles of,
see Miracles, Cluny, Convents.
Church, Early Chnstian: socialis-
tic 60 ; acquires wealth in third
century 60; officially recognized
61; favours barbarian* Oa; sub-
servient to Roman empeiors 62; j
based on miracles 63 etseq*; im-
aginative 373 ; poverty of 373 ; art
of 374.
Church, Eastern : remains subject
to the emperors 78-88 ; architec-
ture of 89 ; plundered 143 ; art of
376*
Church of England: an economic
phenomenon 238 ; Henry supreme
head of 228 ; robbed by landlords
230; orthodox under Henry VII L
23a; spoiled by Edward VL 259,
260; Calvinistie 262; docile to lay
dictation 264 ; faith of regulated by
statute 266 ; without fixed faith 268 ;
ruled by Elizabeth 269 ; hated by
Puritans and Catholics 270 ; divine
right distinctive doctrine of 27s;
organized as police by landlords
272 ; mercenary 273 ; types of clergy
of 275; great bishops of, 276 et
upheld by James 1. 284; per-
secutes puritans under Bancroft
283.
Ciaimux: foundation of 109 j ap-
peals to pope against Philip the
Fair 172 ; see Saint Bernard.
Claudius, Appius: a usurer 7; en-
slaves Virginia 8; enforces usury
laws 9.
Clement V. : election of 178 ; bargain
with Philip 178 ; entices Molay to
Pans 1 So; persecutes Templars
181 ; tries Molay 184 ; death of 185.
Clermont : council of 83.
Chve, Lord : birth of 306; campaigns
of 307 ; Plassey 308 ; wealth of 309 ;
attacked by landlords 310.
Cluny: founded 72; growth of 73;
controls papacy 75.
Cobden : attacks landlords 34X ; ori-
gin of 341.
Cobham, Lord : trial of 193 ; attempts
conventual confiscation 195.
Coeur-de-Lion : leads crusade 130;
treats with Saladin 131,
Coinage, Roman : copper 15; silver
a6; debasement of »6; becomes
gold monometallic 27,30; passes
by weight 31; of Constantinople
55 ; debasement of coinage of Con-
stantinople 56; becomes silver
under Charlemagne 129; Venetian
129 1 gold of thirteenth century 129;
debasement of French pound 170;
debasement of English penny 193 ;
base money of Henry VIII. 206;
standard restored by Elizabeth 300;
recoinage by William III. 302;
depreciation in eighteenth century
303; English gold of nineteenth
century 330; passes by weight 326,
330; see Gold standard.
Coiom: debtors 33; barbarians set-
tled as 39; predecessors of medi-
aeval serfs 244.
Commerce : see Eastern trade, Fairs
of Champagne, Slaving, West
Indies.
Commons : rights of tenants in 244 ;
enclosure of, in sixteenth century
245; cause of Kett’s rebellion 250;
final absorption of 3x7.
Communes: rise of 257; character
oftfio; hostile to clergy 162; not
martial 164 ; insolvency of 169*
INDEX
Constantine . built Constantinople
28 ; vision of 60 , victory of Mil-
vian Budge 61.
Constantinople becomes the eco-
nomic centre of the world 28,
prosperity of after fall of Western
Empire 49, 50 , colonized by Ro-
man capitalists 49 , taxation of 49 ,
poverty of under Theodosius II.
50, prospenty ot under Justinian
i 51 , population changes under
Hetachus 52, becomes an Asiatic
city 52 , declines m eleventh century
53 , civilization of economic 53 ,
description of by Rabbi Benjamin
53, population of economic and
cowaidly 54, economic condition
of m twelfth century 87 , army of
88 ; sack of 144 , see Coinage and
Architecture.
Convents • medieval founders of 68 ,
efficacy of mtei cession of 69, Bene-
dictine 72, eaily discipline of 72,
consolidation of 72 , Cluny 73 ,
control papacy 78, armies organ-
ized by 99, foiti esses built by 99,
patronized for mu acles 109, wealth
of 154 , attacked by feudal nobles
155 ; hostile to communes 160, 161 ,
taxed by Philip the Fair 172 , rev-
enues seized by Edward I. 195;
attacked by Lollaids 196, bill to
suppress 231 , visitation of 235 ,
visitors of 235-238 ; spoliation of 239.
Corn * price of at Rome 17 , distribu-
tion of at Rome 18 ; price of m 1849
345; Com Laws 340, repeal of 340.
Councils of the Church, Hilde-
brand’s propositions at council of
1076 75 , of Clermont 83 , of Troyes
98; of I&es no; N6elle 136;
Vienne 184.
Cranmer rise of 278; character of
279 , death of 280.
Credit dawn of m thirteenth century
167 ; use ot modern system of 303 ,
extension of after Plassey 319 , reg-
ulated bv Bank Act of 1844 336,
prices dependent on 337 , weapon
of the creditor class 349
Cromwell* Oliver; raises Ironsides
387
252 , attacks Spanish America 301 ;
intercepts plate fleet 30X.
Cromwell, Thomas rise of 208; ar-
rest of 224, vicar general 231;
proceeds against convents 333 :
prosecutes Abbot of Glaston 240 ,
death of 242.
Cross miracle worked by at Bosra
1 19 , see Relics.
Crusade first 84; takes Jerusalem
85, second, preached by Saint
Bernard 112 ; suffers before Atalia
1 15, defeat of 118, crusading be-
comes commercial 124; third, led
by Coeur-de-Lion 129 , takes Acre
130, of Constantinople, preached
132 , reaches Venice 134 ; diverted
by Dandolo 139, attacks Zara
138; sacks Constantinople 145;
of Damietta 150, defeated in
Egypt 151.
Currency regulated by Charle-
magne 129, mediaeval x68; con-
traction of in thirteenth century
169, debasement of English 194;
depreciation of m Middle Ages
204 , under Henry VI 1 1. 207 , paper
303 , management of by producers
326, by bankers 330; see Coinage,
Bank of England, Bankers.
Dalhousie, Lord* administration of
356-
Damietta, see Crusade.
Dandolo, Henry, character of 132;
treats with Franks 133 ; takes com-
mand of crusade 137; diverts
crusade 139 , excommunicated
139 , assaults Constantinople X41 ;
shriven 147,
Darcy, Thomas, Lord , character of
2x6; declines to betray Aske 217;
execution of 219 , dying speech to
Cromwell 219.
Denanus * depreciation of at Rome
26 , repudiation of 26 , of Charle-
magne 128; of Venice X29, see
Penny.
Diocletian , a slave 27; established
capital at Nicomedia 27; returns
to silver coinage 30.
INDEX
388
Divme right defined 272 ; see
Church of England,
Divorce see Domestic relations.
Domestic relations ancient and
model n 305 et seq,
Dovercourt rood of 200.
Drake rise of 255, death of 256,
cruises of 288
Dudley, John, Duke of Northumber-
land rise of 251 , suppresses Kett's
rebellion 252 , supersedes Seymour
261 , quarrel w ith Knox 262.
East India Companies organized
292 , English company commercial
up to 1757 306, administration of
309
Eastern Empire, see Constantinople
Eastern trade m Rome 23,24 , cen-
tres at Constantinople 28 , migrates
to Italy 126; earlv routes of 128,
character of m twelfth century
128, brings bullion to Europe 129,
centies m Champagne 159, cen-
tres at Antweip 201, at Amster-
dam 287 , at London 291 , drams
silver from Em opt* 299, efteet of
PUssey on 310,
Edessa position of 86, capture of
103, occupied by Baldwin 105.
Egypt cheap labour of -19 ; grain
ships of 19, architecture of 90;
conquered by Saladm 103, slave
trade with Venice of 126; crusa-
ders defeated m 151,
Elizabeth* greed of 257; severe to
clergy 269; letter about Ely House
270.
England Lollardym 186, Reforma-
tion m, an economic phenomenon
190; debasement of currency in
194 , martyrdoms m 199 , condi-
tion of in Middle Ages 202, new ]
nobility of 212 et seq . ; convents
suppressed in 233 et seq, , popula-
tion of in Middle Ages 243 ; social
revolution in, m sixteenth century
245, 246 ; not originally maritime
254 , seamen of 253 ; prosperity of
in seventeenth century 29a , indus-
trial revolution m 3*5; distress in
after 1815 332, rum of aristocracy
of 341, 348, money-lenders au-
tocratic m 344, see Bank, and
Church of England, and Yeomen
Exchanges see Rome, Constantino-
ple, Eastern trade, Fairs of Cham-
pagne, Venice.
Fairs, see Champagne,
Fetish, see Relics,
Fisher: temperament of 277,
Flotte chancellor of Philip the Fair
165.
France convents of m tenth century
72 ; Ciuny 73 ; decentralization of
m eleventh century 80 ; money of
80, barbarian invasions of 80; seat
of Gothic architecture 89, ogive
mtioduced into 95, emotional in
eleventh century 107, disintegra-
tion of m tenth century 152 , kings
of enjoy supernatural powers 153 ;
alliance of crown with clergy 134 ;
consolidation of under Philip Au-
gustus 158 , centiahzation of under
Samt Louis 165, depreciation of
coinage of 170 , estates of sustain
Philip the Fan 174 ; castles of 202.
Frumentariie Leges, see Com,
Gardiner, Stephen : on True O&edt-
ence 265; use of 276; death of
277,
Germans, hunted by Romans for
slaves 39; used as recruits 40; in-
vade the Empire 46 , character of
in fourth century 48 , adopt the gold
standard 347.
Glastonbury : suppression of 240.
Godfrey de Bouillon * elected Kmg of
Jerusalem 85; his kingdom 86;
his alliance with Venice 127.
Gold ratio of to silver m Roman
Empire 30 ; fall of value of in sixth
century 48 ; ratio of to silver m
thirteenth century 169.
Gold standard : in Rome 31 ; under
the Merovingians 80; m England
330; Overstone's views on 337; m
Germany 347, elsewhere 348; ef-
fect of 347*
INDEX
389
Gunther chronicle of 137 , sails with
Dandolo 138
Hanse of London organization of
158 , trades at fairs of Champagne
159, Italian merchants frequent
159
Hastings Governor-General 310,
policy of 3 1 1.
Hattin battle of 123.
Hawkins, John * a slaver 289.
H61olse, hymn of 368.
Henry IV, Emperor, breach with
Hildebrand 75, penance at Ca-
nossa 77 , death of 77.
Henry VIII court of 212, charac-
ter of 220; Lambert’s trial 226,
supreme head 228 , orthodox 229,
suppresses convents 233, revises
Formularies of Faith 266 , helpless
without landlords 267
Herachus disasters under 52,
Hildebrand prior of Cluny 74,
propositions presented b> in coun-
cil of Rome 75 , excommunicates
Hemy IV. 76, Canossa 77
Holland decay of 318
Hospital, see Knights ol
Howard, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk
family of 214, chaiacter of 215;
commands against Pilgrims of 1
Grace 215, tiles to corrupt Darcy
2x7, ai rests Cromwell 224.
Hugh Capet elected by clergy 153
Hugh du Puiset, see Louis the Fat.
Hun, Richard : death of 198.
Imagination basis of mediaeval
Church 60 , gives power to priest-
hood 63, cause of relic worship
64 , vivid in age of decentralization
69; most intense m tenth century
72, evolves Cluny 73; cause of
Hildebrand's power 78, cause of
crusades 82; inspires Gothic ar-
chitecture 89 , strong in Saint Ber-
nard 108 , weakness of Louis VII.
sty; lacking in Venetians 126, its
power in France in thnteenth cen-
tury 13 6 strength of m Church up
to 1200 148 , a weakness m war 151 ;
economic mmd lacks 162, cause
of Templars’ martyrdom 183 , lack-
ing m English reformers 191 , An-
glican clergy without 259, Tudor
aristocracy without 268 , strong m
early Christians 373 , m contempt
m nineteenth centurv 380, 381
India failure of Romans to con-
quer 12 , hoards m 305 , conquered
by England 307 et s*q , spoliation
of 309-3x1 , influx of treasure from
313 , flow of silver to 320 , value of
bullion exported to m 1810 321 , m
1840 339, centralization of 356,
mutiny m 356, money-lendeis of
357 , fate of warlike tribes m 358 ,
see Eastern trade
Industrial revolution begins 313;
caused by Indian treasui e 314
Innocent III, mutes crusade 132;
excommunicates Philip Augustus
135 , Dandolo 138 , absolves Dan-
dolo 147 , reproves Baldwin 147.
Inquisition organized 191.
Jacques de Vitry: hates bourgeoisie
163
Jerusalem capture of 85, kingdom
of 86, conquest of kingdom by
Saiaccns 123
Joscelin de Couitnev, Count of
Edessa 105, death of 106 , son’s
death 1x8.
Justification by faith corner stone of
Pi otestantism 187 , economic de-
vice 188 , taught by Cranmer 231 ;
included in Forty-two Articles 262.
Justinian I prospenty of 51, army
of 51 , taxation by 52 , architectuie
under 53,
Karak castle of 86, xax.
Kett, see Rebellion.
Knights of Temple and Hospital:
origin of 97, 98, manors owned
bv m Europe 98, castles of 99,
Knights of the Temple, posses-
sions of 170, faith of tyt; arrested
180 , toitured 181 ; defence of x8x ;
burned 183, disposition of prop-
erty of 185.
390
INDEX
Knox, John appointed royal chap-
lam 262, offered bishopric 262;
breach with Dudley 263.
Krak des Chevaliers . 100.
Lambert, martyrdom of 281.
Landlords : Roman 21 , enslave their
tenants 33 , form aristocracy of Em-
pire 41 ; not martial 42 ; English
mercenary 212, rise of 227; con-
fiscate Church property 230 , evict
yeomen 245 , despoil chantries
259, 260 , control Crown 267 , with-
out faith 268 ; organize Church 272 ,
fear army 273, not martial 227,
245. 254, 255, 256, 2 67, 268, 283,
persecute Nonconformists 295,
persecute adventurers 295, con-
quered in 1688 297 j jealous of
Clive and Hastings 309, suffer
after 1815 332; distressed m 1841
340 , attacked by Cobden 341 ,
ruined 348 , of Oude 356.
Latimer desci ibes his father’s farm
247 ; martyrdom of 282.
Leo the Great * visits Attila 63.
Leo IX, : election of 75.
Licmian Laws 10, effect of n.
Lollards, description of X87; Book
of Conclusions of 193; policy of
toward monks 195*
London : hot-bed of Lollard ism X97 ; j
population of in 1509 203 ; power j
of 293 ; population of in 1685 295 ; ]
economic centre of the world 322; 1
art of 381-383 , see Eastern trade
and Hanse of London.
Louis the Fat. defeats Hugh du
Puiset xss , obtains MontlhSri
*57*
Louis VII. * character of 112; leads
second crusade 114; quarrels at
Antioch 1x7 * superstition of 1x7 ,
repulsed at Damascus 1x7; see
Crusade.
Madre-de-Dios . capture of 257.
Mahrattas. conquest of 338, disap-
pearance of 359.
Margat • castle of xox.
Marriage . set Domestic relations.
Martin, Abbot sails with Dandola
138 , steals relics X48,
Marwans 357, destroy Mahrattas
359
Milo, Archbishop of Rheims • 71,
Miracles , early Christian 63 ; medi-
aeval 64 else#., see Bosra, Relics.
Molay, Grand Master; lured to Paris
180 , burned 184.
Monasticism , see Convents,
Money Rome depleted of 23 ; cen-
tres at Constantinople 28 , rises m
value under Empire 35, falls m
value under Charlemagne X29,
rises m value m thirteenth century
169 ; rises m fifteenth century 194 ,
rises under Henry VIII, 206 , falls
after opening of Potosi 207 , abun-
bant stimulates movement 299, a
form of energy 304, hoarded m
India 304, falls at close of eigh-
teenth centui \ 320 rises m nine-
teenth century 337, 360 ; see Capital,
Coinage, Curiency, Prices.
Mons Saccr secession to 9.
Monte Casino • founded 72,
Montfort, Simon de; joins crusade
132 ; leaves Dandolo X38.
Montih^n , lords of 156; castle 157.
Nantes; revocation of Edict of 3x8.
Napoleon; decline of 324; lacking
soldiers 364; column erected to
381.
Nobility; feudal French 154; Eng-
lish 2x6, 243 ; Tudor, see Landlords*
Nogaret ; captures Boniface *76, 177.
Northumberland : see Dudley,
Nour-ed-Din ; Sultan of Aleppo 103 ;
occupies Cairo X03, repulses Louis
VI!. 1x7 ; kills Raymond de Poitiers
xx8.
Ogive; of Eastern origin 95; ap-
pears in transition architecture 96.
Overstone, Lord' nse of 336; con-
ceives Bank Act 336; financial
policy of 337 etse$.
Panic : under Tiberius 25 ; of thir-
teenth century x6p* X70; of xftio
INDEX
391
325 ; of 1825 334 J allayed by paper
money 335 , of 1847 342.
Passive obedience see Divine right.
Patricians usurers 7 , not martial 7 ,
sanction Licmian Laws 10 *, see
Usury.
Pauperism : under Henry VIII. 249 ,
m 1848 345.
Peel, Sir Robert : represents Lom-
bard Street 330, separates from
his father on money issue 330;
his Resumption Act 331 , effect of
331; repeals Corn Laws 340,
parentage 342.
Pelagius, Cardinal commands cru-
sade 150
Penny, the Roman, see Denarius,
of Charlemagne 129 , depreciation
of Venetian 129, depreciation of
English m fourteenth century 195 ;
under Henry VIII. 206, 207.
Philip Augustus 4 regal of France
vowed for recovery of 6$ ; belief in
intercession 69, commands cru-
sade 129; returns to France 130,
divorced from Ingeburga 135 , ex-
communicated 135.
Philip the Fair: character of 17 1;
quarrel with Boniface 172; de-
feated at Com tray X75 ; seizes
Boniface 177; makes Clement V.
pope 178; arrests Templars 180;
tortures Templars 18a; death of
185*
Pilgrimage of Grace: see Rebellion.
Plassey: battle of 308; effect of 313.
Plebeians; farmers 6; form mfantiy
6; sold for debt 7; secede to Mons
Sacer 9; favoured by Licmian
Laws 10; overthrow patricians 10;
suffer from Astatic competition 11 ,
suffer from slave labour 12; in-
solvent 22; become colon 1 33 ; dis-
appear 44, 45.
Police, a paid . lack of, causes defeat
of patricians 39; an effect of money
45; organized by Augustus 45;
makes capital autocratic at Rome
46; impossible when the defence
m war is superior to the attack 79 ;
lack of, causes weakness of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem 99, xai, xaa ;
the weapon of an economic com-
munity 164, an effect of wealth
and the basis of centralization x6$;
m England under Henry VIII
245, destroys martial type 245,
drives adventurers from England
254; resistless m nineteenth cen-
tury, 353
Pompey defeat of 364.
Potosi discovery 207.
Prices * fall of, under Trajan 33; rise
of m thirteenth century 167, fall
of m fifteenth ceutury203; rise of
m sixteenth century 207, 283 , rise
of after Plassey 319, culminate in
1809 324 , fall of m England after
1815 330 , depressed by gold stand-
ard 337, fall of after Bank Act
339, rise of after 1849345; of
since 1873 349*
Producers predominance of 321;
currency system of 328,329, weak-
ness of modern 349 , Indian 360.
Puritans reject royal supremacy
264, resist ecclesiastical confisca-
tion 270, eviction of clergy 285;
emigiation of 285, foes of Span-
iards 289.
Pyrrhus* admires Roman infantry
11 ; defeat of ix.
Raleigh: family of 255; captures
Madie-de-Dios 257, death of 257.
Raymond de Poitiers, at feud with
de Courtnev 107; breach with
Louis VII. 117; death of 1x8,
Rebellion: of Pilgrimage of Grace
216; suppression of 222 ; Kett*s
250; in West of England 250, 252.
Reformation; an economic move-
ment 188 ; in England 230 ; under
Edward VL 259, 260; see Church
of England, Convents, Lollards.
Reginald de Chatillon X2X.
Regulus : poverty of 15.
Relics: magical 64; gifts to fist list
of English 66; worship of cause
of ciusades 81; true cross 1x9;
plunder of at Constantinople 148;
despised 151; relic worship costly
INDEX
39 *
192-196; desecrated in England
200.
Rent * rise of money value of m
Rome 32, effect of 33, 34; substi-
tution of for military service 245 ,
rises m sixteenth century 247;
effect of rise 24S , rise of m seven-
teenth century 2S3; fall of after
1815 causes insolvency of land-
lords 332; dependent on Corn
Laws 340 , fall of after 1873 rums
gentry 348.
Ridley, doctrine concerning sacra-
ment 261 , burned 282.
Robinson, John* congregation of
285.
Rome : early society of 1 ; classes in
2 1 law of debt m 2-4 , early army
of 9; not maritime 12; slavery m
13 , economic revolution in 24 ; a
plutocracy 15 , annexes Egypt 27 ,
senators landowners 21 ; great do-
mains of 21 , conquests of 23 , un-
able to compete with Asia 23;
foreign exchanges unfavourable to
23 , insolvent 28 ; decline of 37 ;
ceases breeding soldiers 40, later
emperors of foreign adventurers
40, governed by a monied oli-
garchy 41; economic type auto-
cratic in 42; women of emanci-
pated 43; paid police of 45;
barbarian invasions 46, 47; do-
mestic relations m 369 , art of 372 ;
architecture of 382 ; see Coinage,
Slaving, Usurers, Usury.
Rothschilds j rise of 322 ; establish
house m London 323.
Russell, John, Earl of Bedford; con-
ducts trial of Abbot of Glaston 241,
Saint Bernard; birth of 108; enters
Citeaux 108; founds Ciairvaux
109; recognizes Innocent II, 120;
preaches second crusade 2x2;
miracles of 1x3; declines to lead
crusade 2x4 ; remarks on defeat of
crusade 128.
Samt Cuthbert plunder of shnne of
»39<
Saint Denis; Abbey of 134,
Saint Riquier sacrilege at 162.
Samt Sophia architecture of 89
377; desecration of 145
Samt Thomas a Bucket : shrine of 65,
Samt Thomas Aquinas, veneration
of for Eucharist 67,
Saladin . sends physician to Richard
94; crowned Sultan 104; kills
Reginald de ChatiHon 121 ; Hattm
122, campaign against Richard
230, treats with Richard 232.
Saracens* architecture of 89, 90;
household decorations of 90; phi-
losophy of 93 , sciences of 94 , see
Crusades, Nour-ed-Dm, Saladm,
Zenghi.
Schism: Greek 78.
Seymour, Protector: confiscations
under 261 , executed 262,
Sicily: cheap labour m 26; servile
war in 16 ; cheap gram of 17.
Silver* Roman standard 26; dis-
carded in Rome 31 ; restored by
Charlemagne 228 , ratio of to gold
in Rome 30 , to gold m thirteenth
century 269 , Potosi 204 , Spaniards
plundered of 288 ; brought to Eng-
land by piracy 291 ; ratio to gold in
seventeenth century 300 ; standard
in England 300; exported to India
m eighteenth oentuiy 299-302; m
18 jo 320; discarded bv England
330; by Germany 34 v; relation
to Asiatic competition 360; see
Coinage, Currency, Denanus,
Gold standard.
Slavery ; for debt m Rome 5 ; ple-
beians sink into 33 ; Roman pop-
ulation exhausted by 36 ; m West
Indies 289, 290,
Slaving; part of Roman fiscal sys-
tem 34, by Roman emperors 39;
Venetian 126, English 292; see
Hawkms,
Smith, Captain John ; career Of 29 5,
Solidus . see Aureus,
Somerset , Duke of, see Seymour,
Spain* empire of 286; war with
Flanders 287 ; plundered by Drake
288; attacked by Cromwell 30X;
see Armada, West Indies.
INDEX
393
Spanish America , revolution of 324
Su ez Canal effect of 35s,
Sylvester II. thought a sorcerer 81 ,
proposes a crusade 83.
Syria industrial 25, see Architec-
ture, Crusades, Eastern trade,
Saracens
Temple, see Knights of the.
Tenures primitive Roman 1 , servile
Roman 33, English military 244,
the manor 244; modem economic
245 , Indian peasant 356
Thompson, Charles Andrew* peti-
tion of 332.
Tiberias battle of, see Hattm,
Tortosa fortress of ioi, surrender
of 171.
Trade, see Eastern trade, Fairs of
Champagne, Slaving
Urban II. pleaches at Clermont
S3.
Usurers . form Roman aristocracy 2 ;
checked by Liciman Laws 10, ab-
solute m Rome 46 ; rise of in |
England 321 , absolute m Europe
353, Indian 357, .fee Bankeis,
Usury a patnuan privilege 2 ,
stronghold of in Roman fiscal sys-
tem 5, uiiiis Roman ptovimt’435;
basis of Roman slaving 30, see
Usurers.
Vagrant Acts ; English 248
Venice: rise of 125; slave trade of
126; illicit bade of with Sara-
cens 126, population unimagina-
tive 126; navy of 127 , co-operates
with Godfrey de Bouillon 127,
holds Syrian ports 127, coinage
of 129, participates tn ciusade of
Constantinople 137 , see Crusade*
packet seivice to Flanders 201;
decline of 298.
V6zelay . second crusade preached
at 1 12, feud with Counts of Ne*
vers 161.
Ville-Hardoum * chronicle of X32.
Virginia. storyof8.
War see Police.
Watt, James invents engine 314;
partneiship with Boulton 316.
West Indies Spanish revenue diawn
from 287 , trade of lucrative 291 ,
Cromwell attacks 301.
Whit mg, Abbot of Glaston * martyr-
dom of 241
Wickliffe • begins his agitation 192.
William of 'Ivre. describes origin of
Temple 97, defeat of Louis VII.
in Cadmus Mountains 115 , breach
between Louis and Pirnce Ray-
mond 117, the collapse of King-
dom of jemsalem 118.
Wiltshire, Fail of, see Boleyn.
Yeomen* fotm British infantry 243;
small farmers 244 : decline of un-
der Henry VI 11 245, form Iron-
sides 252, weakei become agri-
uuUutul Inborn e is 253; become
met chants 254; become adventu-
ters254 , form English martial type
255, extinction of 317, migration
to towns of 317, descendants of
become manufacturers and usurers
34 * » 342 .
Zara attack on 134 ; stormed 138.
Zenghi : rise of 103 j captures Edessa
103.
Printed in the United States of Amenc*,
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11